Howard Collection

A rare trove of 197 unpublished Australian plays (1920–55) by writers including Dymphna Cusack, Katharine Susannah Prichard and Alan Seymour—collected by Campbell Howard to preserve a vital chapter of the nation’s theatrical heritage.

Performing arts

Key items in the collection

The Campbell Howard Collection comprises 197 plays in typescript or manuscript form. In most cases there are multiple copies, resulting in a total of 491 items. Copies of 18 additional plays are held on microfilm.

Among the playwrights represented in the collection are:

Allan Aldous
Mona Brand
John Le Gay Brereton
Dymphna Cusack
Dulcie Deamer
Henrietta Drake-Brockman
Louis Esson
Oriel Gray
Joan Harvey
Tom Judd
CR Jury
Ray Mathew
Gwen Meredith
John O’Grady
Vance Palmer
RS Porteous
Katharine Susannah Prichard
Betty Roland
Alan Seymour
Walter Stone
Ric Throssell
Harry Tighe.

About Campbell Howard

Campbell Howard (1906–1984) was born in Ballarat and educated at the Sydney Teachers’ College, New England University College and the University of Melbourne. He held a number of positions in the New South Wales Department of Education.

Academic career

In 1956, Howard joined the Department of Adult Education at the University of New England. He retired as Director of the Department in 1972.

In 1957, Howard was asked to arrange an adult education course on Australian drama. He discovered that while many plays had been written and performed in the decades before Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, relatively few had been published.

Collecting and preserving plays

Howard began approaching playwrights and their heirs to acquire copies of plays from 1920–55. He sought works that had been performed by a reputable company, reviewed by a reputable critic or published in a reputable publication. His focus was on unpublished plays, though he sometimes acquired published editions.

Most playwrights lent manuscripts, which Howard had copied as typescripts. A small number were microfilmed.

Support and access

Howard received financial support from the National Library and the Dixson Library at the University of New England. Copies of the plays were placed in both libraries.

Background to the collection

The first plays were received in 1959 and by 1964 a total of 165 plays had been received. The influx diminished in the next few years and the last play was received in 1969.

In 1985, Ric Throssell gave permission for copies of 7 plays by his mother, Katharine Susannah Prichard, to be placed in the Campbell Howard Collection.

The typescript and manuscript plays are kept together in the Manuscripts collection. A copy of the checklist produced by the University of New England Library in 1968, marked up with the National Library’s holdings, including microfilms, is shelved in the Manuscripts Reading Room.

The plays that were microfilmed are catalogued individually, and can be consulted in the Newspaper Microcopy Room.

The Campbell Howard Collection in the Dixson Library at the University of New England duplicates, but is more extensive than, the National Library collection. The Dixson Library has continued to add scripts of plays to the original collection. In addition, it contains ledgers indexing theatrical productions and performers (1925–33), playbills, correspondence and other personal papers of Howard. A total of 300 plays are listed in Jack Bedson and Julian Croft, compilers of The Campbell Howard annotated index of Australian plays 1920–1955, University of New England, Armidale, 1993.

This guide was prepared using these references: