The Wesleyan Library, Hobart Town, was established at a public meeting in the Wesleyan Chapel, Melville Street, on 19 September 1825; the date was chosen to commemorate the centenary of John Wesley’s ordination to the ministry. The driving force in the establishment of the library was the Methodist missionary and minister Benjamin Carvosso, noted as its ‘librarian’, and who was also responsible for the compiling this pamphlet containing the rules and regulations, and catalogue of books, of the library. It was printed by Andrew Bent, who advertised his role in publishing this ‘interesting Pamphlet’ in the Colonial Times, promoting the fact that ‘the expence of this little work did not exceed £4’. The original reproduced here, from the collection of the State Library of New South Wales, is the oldest surviving printed library catalogue from the Australian colonies.
The catalogue shows a small collection of 204 titles. As might be expected, theological works, sermons, and other religious texts made up the bulk of the collection, while biographies of prominent Methodists, and others living morally exemplary lives, also formed a significant proportion of the works in the library. There were a very few novels or books of poetry, and these were confined to standard eighteenth-century authors such as Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Laurence Sterne, William Cowper, and Edward Young. Works of geography and history also tended to support an intellectual orientation which looked back to Europe—a Guide through Paris, and a Guide through France were found in the collection, as well as David Hume’s History of England, among other canonical works of British history.
NG
