[South Australian Portraits]Biblio.com
'The Eucalypts 1910-1918. "With Gray Green Scimitars Defying The Sun"' cover title of an album of signed portrait photographs of worthy South Australians
1919108343Adelaide 1919. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Adelaide circa 1919. A custom-made photograph album 190 × 200 mm containing 6 card leaves with an original gelatin silver photograph mounted on both sides of each leaf with interleaved tissue-guards. Each photograph is approximately 135 × 95 mm. Half leather and cloth lettered in full in gilt on the front cover with 'The Eucalypts' in gilt on the spine; leather discoloured and moderately rubbed with slight wear in a few areas; some tiny paint spots near the head of the front cover; tissue-guards a little foxed and offset; marginal silvering-out to five prints; overall in very good condition. All but the first portrait is signed and only the last one contains an additional inscription the date '10.1.19'. The State Library of South Australia has another example of this album enabling us to confirm the identities where the handwriting was unclear. Ministers of religion lawyers doctors and architects predominate. The subjects are Reverend A.H. Gifford possibly A.E. Gifford; Benjamin Benny 1869-1935 senator and solicitor; George McEwin 1873-1945 lawyer and philanthropist; Edward Erskine Cleland 1869-1943 barrister and judge; Alfred McBain Bonython 1865-1954 architect; Sir James Wallace Sandford 1879-1958 merchant and politician; Reverend Wilfred Harris Unitarian minister returned to England in 1918; Dr Herbert Frank Shorney 1878-1933 opthalmologist; Sir Thomas John Mellis Napier 1882-1976 later a SA Supreme Court judge; Harold Reid; Edward Warner Benham 1872-1948 lawyer and academic; and Francis Hedley Counsell 1864-1933 architect. <p>The subtitle is a misquote from 'Among the Sandhills' by Adela Florence Nicolson née Cory 1865-1904 an English poet who wrote under the pseudonym Laurence Hope 'The scented orange bushes check the breeze Granting in tribute many waxen stars And aromatic Eucalyptus trees Defy the sun with grey-green scimitars'. We have saved the best until the end: we purchased this item decades ago and have postponed cataloguing it innumerable times not knowing who 'The Eucalypts' were. We have finally solved the puzzle by the simple expedient of spending untold hours on it. We eventually discovered the lengthy biographical sketch of Alfred Bonython compiled by Giles Walkley for the University of SA's database on architects accessible online. Among many other interesting details he records that 'At the age of 42 Bonython became the father of a fourth daughter . Determinedly reviving his literary activities he joined both at their outset in 1910 Lady Symon's Poetry Society and the "liberal Christian" discussion group The Eucalypts Club . SRG 252'. hardcover
