Lawlor Collection

Explore letters, manuscripts, caricatures, and 20 original cartoons that capture the lives and work of Australian and New Zealand writers, journalists, composers and artists brought together by Patrick Lawlor, a prolific author and journalist whose passion for collecting preserved a rich slice of trans-Tasman cultural history.

Literature and writing Visual arts

Key items in the collection

This collection hosts a range of formats, including:

The Lawlor Collection comprises 130 files containing:

letters
newspaper cuttings
published caricatures
letters
literary manuscripts.

Most of the files relate to Australian writers, journalists, composers and artists, including several New Zealanders who settled in Australia.

There are also substantial files on The Bulletin and the Bread and Cheese Club. The letters date from 1897 to 1968. While Lawlor was the recipient of the bulk of them, a number of them had been sent to other writers, particularly Will Lawson.

The correspondents include:

Kate Baker
P Neville Barnett
Louis Becke
EJ Brady
Zora Cross
Eleanor Dark
Bill FitzHenry
Joseph Furphy
Fritz Hart
Alfred Hill
George Lambert
Louis Lavater
Will Lawson
Norman Lindsay
James McAuley
Hugh McCrae
Kenneth Mackenzie
JK Moir
William Moore
John Shaw Neilson
Darcy Niland
Bernard O’Dowd
Vance Palmer
Ruth Park
Olaf Ruhen
Brunton Stephens
Douglas Stewart
Kylie Tennant

The collection contains 20 original cartoons by Australian artists, most of them undated.

The artists include:

Will Dyson
George Lambert
David Low
Hugh McCrae
Frank Mahoney
Phil May
Benjamin Minns
Oswald Pryor
Mervyn Skipper
David Souter
Unk White

About Patrick Lawlor

Patrick Anthony Lawlor (1893–1979) was born in Wellington, New Zealand, and educated at Marist Brothers School and St Patrick’s College.

Career in journalism

In 1910, Lawlor began working for the Evening Post, beginning a lifelong career in journalism. He worked with newspapers including The Dominion, Hawke’s Bay Herald, New Zealand Times, and New Zealand Truth. He also edited the New Zealand Artists’ Annual (1926–32) and the New Zealand Railways Magazine (1933–40).

Lawlor first visited Australia in 1914 and returned to Sydney in 1922, working for the Daily Telegraph for two years. He was the New Zealand editor and distributor of Aussie and, from 1932 to 1965, served as the New Zealand representative of The Bulletin.

Publications

Lawlor was the author of more than 40 books and pamphlets, including:

The poetry of Dick Harris (1927)
Confessions of a journalist (1935)
The house of Templemore (1938)
Books and bookmen: New Zealand and overseas (1954)
Old Wellington days (1959)

Literary and cultural involvement

He was a friend of many leading New Zealand writers and active in organisations such as the New Zealand Ex Libris Society, the New Zealand Centre of PEN, and the Friends of the Turnbull Library. From 1947 to 1955, he served as the first secretary of the advisory committee of the New Zealand Literary Fund. He also established the Beltane Book Bureau, a book exchange business in Wellington.

Private library

Over his lifetime, Lawlor assembled an extensive private library that included New Zealand poetry, editions of the works of Thomas à Kempis, and autographs of significant 19th and 20th century writers. The collection was dispersed in the 1960s and 1970s.

Background to the collection

The Lawlor Collection was purchased by the Library in 1970. Pat Lawlor subsequently donated some additional letters and drawings.

The manuscripts of the Lawlor Collection are kept together in the Manuscripts collection. They have been catalogued as a collection, use the finding aid.

The cartoons are kept in the Pictures collection and have been catalogued individually.

This guide was prepared using these references: