State Library Victoria > La Trobe Journal

No 9 April 1972

[Back matter]

24

The Tristan Buesst Fund

Mr. Tristan Buesst, who has retired from office after a five-year term as President of the Friends, has made a substantial gift to the Library for the purchase, from time to time, of historical paintings.
The Library recently made its first purchase from the Fund. It is a 12 ½ in. × 18 ½ in. water-colour, Post Office, Melbourne (reproduced on page 23), by an artist who has not yet been identified. The work was bought at auction for $1,500.
An engraving from the painting was reproduced in the Illustrated Melbourne Post for 23 August 1862, and a columnist waxed eloquent over the significance of the ‘English Mail Day’ depicted, and the last days of the old post office and the building of the new. He concluded: ‘Our Sketch gives a faithful picture of the approach to the Receiving Boxes of the Post-office in Elizabeth street, and of the general melee which characterises the place as the time for closing draws near. The scene will be at once recognised by every Melbournite, and to friends afar off it will afford one of the best and readiest means of judging of life in Victoria. The number of newspapers posted for each [monthly] mail is about 50,000; and the number of letters, 40,000. These fill about 160 boxes, and weigh some 8 tons—to be carried by the P. and O. Co.’s boats at sea, and transported across the Great Desert by railway. In forty-five days our letters and newspapers by these means are placed in the hands of our distant friends, and Victoria holds easy communion with the whole civilised world.
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The La Trobe Library

is a section of the State Library of Victoria and is Victoria's Chief research-centre and reference library for Australian history and literature. It is the State's principal repository for manuscript material, historical paintings, newspapers, etc., relating to the history of Australia and the Pacific and especially Victoria.

Friends of the La Trobe Library

is a society founded in 1966. Its aims are to publicise the Library, to attract financial support for it, to help to fill gaps in the book-collection, and to encourage the donation of manuscript and other material.
With regard to the last objective, the Friends seek to locate diaries, letters and other family or institutional papers which have survived, and to acquire such material for the Library or to arrange to have it photo-copied by negotiation with the owners.
The Friends' Patrons are H. E. The Governor, Sir Henry Winneke, K.C.M.G., K.C.V.O., O.B.E., K.St.J., Q.C. (Patron-in-Chief); Hon. R. J. Hamer, E.D., M.L.A.; Hon. Sir Henry Bolte, G.C.M.G.; the Lady Casey; Professor R. M. Crawford.
The Friends' office-bearers are: President, Professor A. G. L. Shaw; Vice President, Dr. Geoffrey Serle; Hon. Treasurer, S. R. C. Wood, Esq., D.F.C.; Hon. Secretary, John Holroyd, Esq.; Librarian, Miss Kathleen Young (La Trobe Librarian).
New Friends will be welcomed, especially if they are prepared to be active. The annual subscription is $12 (which includes the Journal). The Friends' address is State Library of Victoria, Swanston Street, Melbourne. 3000.
Printed by the Aldine Press Pty Ltd. 549 Chapel Street, South Yarra, 3141.
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