The Choosing of a Proper Hobby: Sir William Crowther and His Library

Sir William Crowther (1887–1981), a Tasmanian medical practitioner, assembled a library of extraordinary range and depth. This paper explores Crowther’s reasons for presenting his collection to the State Library from the early 1960s until his death in 1981. Using recently-rediscovered interviews and hitherto unexplored correspondence between Crowther and Sir John Ferguson, George Mackaness, E. E. Pescott, Clifford Craig, K. R. von Stieglitz and H. A. Evans, this paper illuminates the principles and enthusiasms which informed his collecting and the ways in which his collection was used.