The Mollison Library

As early as December, 1848 Bishop Charles Perry, the recently-arrived first Bishop of Melbourne established a Lending Library for the use of the clergy and laity of the Diocese. Ten years later the Melbourne Diocesan Library was established. This was housed at the Bishops's Registy, Little Collins Street West with W E Morris as librarian. It comprised, principally, books presented by the Society for Promoting Christian knowledge and by Bishop Perry, together with the Library of the first Archdeacon of Melbourne, Thomas Hart Davies, purchased on his return to England.The collection was further augmented in 1874 by additional theological and historical wirks gifted by Bishop Perry before his return to England in February, 1874. The Melbourne library had equivalents on other dioceses, but, Miss Mollison's gift of $4,000 in 1889 opened up new vistas of usefulness. The time was opportune, as planning for the new diocesan offices to adjoin the Cathedral had begun. Provision was made for the Library to be located on the first floor at the 'centre of diocesan life'. The Deed of Gift provided that the Library should be under the direction of the Cathedral Chapter which in September, 1892 nominated the first Library Committee which comprised:

Archdeacon Stretch, Canon Handfield, Revd John F Stretch, Revd A W Cresswell, Mr Henry Henty, Mr T Brodribb and Mr Henry S Barlow.

Then on 1 January, 1893 the first Librarian, Mr W F Wyatt, a teacher at the Cathedral Choir School, was appointed on a part-time basis at a salary of £40 per annum. Finally, on 29 May, 1893, the A F Mollison Library was declared open, 'for the use of the Clergy and Licensed Readers of the Diocese of Melboourne'.

The next sixty years were a period of quiet usefulness. A succession of part-time librarians, of whom the most notable were the Reverends J C Love, William McKie and S H Smith, with help from Mr E H Bromby, provided basic servicing. In 1931 the facilities of the Library were opened to all the Victorian dioceses, but the usage was low. The endowment, which was barely adequate in 1893, was quite inadequate seventy years later. Few books could be bought, haphazard additions came by gift or bequests from such as George Cantwell Ayre and Archbishop Lees' widow. Fortunately from the nineteen fifties until its closure an annual grant was made by the Diocesan Book Society.

By the middle ninteen sixties the future of the Library hung in the balance. Covetous eyes were being cast by diocesan administators on the space occupied by the Library and the bookstock was poorly catalogued, unattractively shelved and lacking in modern works. Drastic action was needed and this was forthcoming. An arrangement was negotiated with Trinity College whereby, while retaining its identity, library services were provided by the College's Leeper Library.

As a result, the last twenty five years have seen the transformation of the Library. Building on its holdings of standard Anglican theology from the seventeeth and eighteenth centuries, the Mollison Library now holds a wide ranging collection of Anglican theology, devotion, liturgy, history and biography. Included are most publications of the Parker Society, of the Library of Anglo Catholic Theology and of the Alcuin Club, together with an extensive run of Bampton Lectures. As well, the Library has pursued a policy of providing as comprehensive a holding as possible of publications on Australian Anglicanism and by Australian Anglicans. This includes a range of periodicals such as complete runs of the Colonial church Chronicle and the Melbourne Church of England Messenger and its successors and the definitive collection of Moorhouse Lectures. For some years the Library housed an embryonic collection of Melbourne archival material, notably an extensive collection of parish histories, but this was moved to the Melbourne diocesan archives on their establishment in 1984.

Since its coming to Trinity, first Miss Mary Rusden and then Miss Jean Waller, have greatly extended the library's usefulness, especially within the academic and research communities. This low rate of usage by clergy and readers remains a concern, but the problem no longer resides in the Library, but in those for whom it was and is intended.