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Special Collections

About Special Collections

The Library's Special Collections area houses archival material of special significance to the University and research collections. The variety of material includes University publications, rare books, popular culture materials and donated collections. There is a large amount of manuscript material, much of it associated with the donations.

Particular strengths of the collections are the popular magazines, including men's, women's and style magazines; local newspapers and newsletters; the Women's Studies material and the Science Fiction fanzine collection.

Murdoch collects Australian popular culture materials of both a mainstream and ephemeral nature. Particular strengths are in the areas of popular magazines, local newspapers and newsletters and counterculture materials indicating political and social change. These collections are particularly valuable for teaching in the areas of Popular Culture, Gender and Women's Studies. They are further supported by individual collections such as the Irene Greenwood Collection and the Pankhurst Collection. There is also a large amount of associated manuscript material including the Irene Greenwood manuscripts, the archived papers of the Women's Electoral Lobby (WA branches) and the Abortion Law Reform Association, the Megan Sassi Collection and the papers of the Public Peace Committee. The ephemera and poster collections also complement these areas.

There is also a large collection of comics and graphic material and a significant collection of Australian science fiction fanzines, notably the Leigh Edmonds Collection, complements the Library's collection of SF literature.

Collection Access

Special Collections are held in a closed area.
Library users are required to submit a request form for each item they wish to use.
Items are then made available the next day (requests made on Friday will be available the following Monday).
Items are collected from the Reserve Desk and may be used only within the Library.

Individual Collections

Abortion Law Reform Association (W.A.) Papers

Holdings comprise papers deposited by the Western Australian branch of the Abortion Law Reform Association (A.L.R.A.). These include reports, some correspondence, newsletters, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, pamphlets and journals covering the interests and activities of the Abortion Law Reform Association (W.A.) from its foundation in 1969 onwards. For more information about access, or further details on the content and scope of the collection, please contact the Women's Studies subject librarian.

The Pankhurst Collection

Scarce source material documenting the United Kingdom Women's Suffrage Campaign was collected by Tara Books Ltd. of Winchester, England in 1977 and offered for sale as part of the " Blue Moon" Collection. The catalogue from the bookseller is kept with the collection. It covers the period 1850-1930, with the majority of works published between 1900-1920.
Secondary source material has been almost entirely excluded from the 135 titles which include 53 books and 26 pamphlets written by suffragettes and their critics.

In addition to the books and pamphlets the collection includes 120 issues of the Victorian periodical The Englishwomen's Review (1881 -1891), as well as 449 issues of the suffrage campaign newspapers The Common Cause of Humanity, The Vote, Votes for Women, The Suffragette and Britannica.
A resource of great potential comprises 16 albums of newscuttings compiled by suffragettes. Fifteen of these cover the time period May 1909 to May 1914. Each volume is indexed by the compiler, Iris Valerie Yeoman. The other is a scrapbook covering a greater time period, compiled by Miss Hewitt.
Another primary resource is a collection of 24 signed letters from the leaders of the suffrage campaign, spanning 1860-1930 and illustrating the opinions, policies and ideals of the women's movement.

The suffrage campaign ephemera included in the collection aim to illustrate the campaign as experienced by the individual. Included are a suffragette's satchel, WSPU and Votes for Women badges and two song sheets. It also illustrates how the campaign was advertised to the public with 5 posters (such as the WSPU cat and mouse poster issued in 1913). The campaign as also conducted through the mailbox as shown by 12 postcards, 1 photograph and a calendar head with Christabel Pankhurst's portrait. The collection also includes post-suffrage campaign ephemera.

Peet Collection

The Peet Collection contains the library and personal papers of the journalist George Peet (1902-1985) who was on the staff of the Straits Times (Singapore) from 1923-1951. The collection consists of some 200 books treating the history and society of Singapore and the Malay Peninsula together with 29 files, some correspondence, 10 volumes of news cuttings and a scrapbook. These provide much information about the local history of Malaya and Singapore and the development of their present societies.

George Peet requested that his family preserve his library and personal papers, and to this end this important collection has been donated to Murdoch University Library by Professor Peter Boyce, George Peet's son-in-law and the Vice-Chancellor of Murdoch University from 1985 -1996.
In 1986, A/Prof Jim Warren of Asian Studies in the School of Humanities at Murdoch University published A Guide to the George L. Peet Collection on Singapore and Malaysia ( Murdoch, WA, Murdoch University Library). The Guide contains further biographical information about George Peet together with a full list of the books in the collection and a summary of the contents of the files and cuttings volumes.
This information about the collection has been taken from the Guide and the author's permission to use his work is gratefully acknowledged.

Books in the Peet Collection
The oldest book in the collection is William Marsden's The History of Sumatra (1784). Many books in the collection are first editions from the period between the 1840s and the 1930s. There are also a number of more recent publications covering the postwar period up to 1975. The history and culture of Singapore, Malaya and Borneo and the Indian Ocean Basin are represented from the time of European settlement - there are also some works dealing with the pre-eighteenth century world.
There is also a discontinuous run of the Straits Times Annual from 1937-1983.

Files and News Cuttings
These cover Peet's journalistic career from the 1930s through to his last trip to Singapore in 1985 for the launching of his book Rickshaw Reporter at the Raffles Hotel. Cuttings of all Peet's writings are included together with his leaders when editor of the Straits Times from 1947-52, and his various columns.
Also collected is a series from the Straits Times - Memories of a Malayan Civil Servant by R.J. Farrer, C.M.G. and a chronicle of Malayan rural life called The Countryman's Journal which appeared in the paper from 1947-1961. This was written by James Alphonse Le Doux, a retired planter who first went to Kota Tinggi in 1906.
There are also cuttings from other papers, miscellaneous periodical articles on Singapore, typescripts, correspondance and personal notebooks.