Peter Ellis Collection
Key items in the collection
Highlights from this collection demonstrate its historical significance and variety.
The Peter Ellis Collection consists of 80 items recorded between 1979 and 2001, the bulk of them having been made between 1994 and 2001.
They contain interviews with musicians, dancers and others, and recordings of songs and performances on the piano, violin, accordion, button accordion and mouth organ. As well as solo pieces, there is some band music. Most of the recordings were made in eastern and central Victoria, including:
- Bendigo
- Maryborough
- St Arnaud
- Charlton
- Kerang
- Nariel Creek
- Traralgon
- Wodonga.
The Peter Ellis Collection of dance music contains 232 pieces of sheet music and 202 albums. Australian imprints make up about half the collection. Most of the works were published in the period from 1900 to 1940, but there are a small number of 19th-century items.
A small quantity of personal papers and manuscripts are held including letters received by Ellis (1980–1989) including:
- manuscript music
- dance programs
- lists of dance tunes
- photographs of:
- dancers
- dance programs.
About Peter Ellis
Peter Nicolaus Ellis (1946–2015) was born in Bendigo and educated at Bendigo High School and Bendigo Technical College.
Career in Bendigo
In 1965, he obtained a position as a laboratory assistant at Bendigo Technical College. He remained there for 12 years and later worked as a laboratory assistant and technician in the following other Bendigo institutions:
- Flora Hill High School
- Bendigo Senior Secondary College
- the La Trobe University College of Northern Victoria.
Passion for traditional dance and music
As a young man, Ellis attended dances regularly and he became intensely interested in the older traditional dances. He was one of the founders of the Bush Dance and Music Club of Bendigo and was helped in his search for old dances and tunes by Harry McQueen, Shirley Andrews and others.
Musical contributions and publications
Apart from piano lessons, he had no formal musical training, but he became proficient in a number of instruments, including:
- button accordion
- concertina
- mouth organ
- tin whistle.
He formed the bands Break of Day and Emu Creek Bush Band, and later played with the Wedderburn Old Timers.
Recording and preserving folk traditions
Collector's Choice, compiled by Ellis and published by the Victorian Folk Music Club in 3 volumes from 1986 to 1988, was the result of his extensive searches for the tunes of:
- bush dances
- quadrilles
- polkas
- other traditional dances.
Ellis was also the co-author, with Shirley Andrews, of Two Hundred Dancing Years (1988).
Ellis first used a tape recorder while collecting dance music in the 1970s.
He later collaborated with John Meredith (refer also to the Meredith Collection, Willis Collection and Woodland Collection) on several oral history interviews.
In the 1990s, he devoted much of his spare time to travelling in rural Victoria collecting and recording music.
Background to the collection
Ellis donated a collection of dance music to the Library from 1989 to 1992. In 1994 the Library began to provide him with financial assistance for his field trips and his collection of oral history recordings was acquired in 1994 and 2001.
The Peter Ellis oral history interviews and dance music recordings are kept together in the Oral History Collection.
The majority have been catalogued individually.
The sheet music and albums are kept together in the Music Collection.
The personal papers are housed in the Manuscripts Collection.
This guide was prepared using these references:
- Gwenda Beed Davey and Graham Seal (editors), The Oxford Companion to Australian Folklore, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1993, p 107.
- John Meredith, Oral history interview with Peter Ellis, 1991, ORAL TRC 2590/17.
Continue your journey
More to explore
Benvenuti Family (l to r - Victorio Guiseppi, Luigi Antonio, Italo Angelo and Antonio Giovanni), 1890, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-143662956