Exploring our bookselling origins

Photo: ODT files
Photo: ODT files
As a Unesco City of Literature, Dunedin is very much a city of books. Writers, publishers and printers have always been part of that story and so, too, have been the booksellers, writes Jim Sullivan.

Although  Otakou pioneer Octavius Harwood, who ran the shop for Weller’s whaling station, was probably not selling books, in 1840 he was writing home lamenting that his "stock of books was read through, and through" and asking for more.

The death of Harwood’s neighbour, farmer Andrew Rowand, in 1849, resulted in the town’s first book auction, conducted by William Cutten, and it was largely left to merchants like Cutten to supply books during the 1850s, either through auctions or by importing bundles of assorted books to sell alongside everything else that crammed their stores.

However, the founder of the Otago News, Henry Graham, pioneered conventional bookselling as early as February 1849. The books on offer may well have been his own, so making him the first second-hand bookseller as well. By December 1849 he had established something more like a bookstore near the post office and, as he owned the newspaper, his advertising was extensive, but he died in December 1851.

The aristocratic Edmund Bellairs, who owned Fernhill, wrote in 1852 that he was "fairly galvanised" by finding a man in a one-room cottage, built with his own hands, in possession of a library "such as few of what were termed the upper classes of England could boast".

In 1858 a Dunedin Reading Club was formed with more than 40 initial subscribers and merchant James Paterson offered to supply and issue books. John Logan arrived in Dunedin in 1854 and set up a bookselling business in a fern-tree cottage. He was not in business for long as he was soon appointed clerk to the provincial superintendent.

The real growth in Dunedin bookselling would have to wait until later in the 1860s when the wealth of the goldfields brought a boom in population and business, including the establishment of Dunedin’s giants of bookselling — William Hay, Joseph Mackay, Joseph Braithwaite and Henry Wise. James Horsburgh would follow in the 1870s.

An oddity was Spaniard Joseph Macedo, who opened a barber’s shop in Princes St in 1861 but with an influx of Irish gold miners was soon calling himself "Dunedin’s Catholic bookseller".

Another unusual appearance was that of Frenchman Philip Mitchell, who sold books from a stand in front of the Occidental Hotel before opening a shop in 1863 in Fleet St (later The Arcade) selling books and magazines and a range of other items. Mitchell prospered and after his death in 1909 David Stewart continued with the business until his death in 1918.

During this time, the giants of the business came on the scene. These included Joseph Braithwaite, whose giant book arcade in Princes St was a national tourist attraction and "the place" for Dunedinites to be seen on a Saturday night.

Soon, the second-hand booksellers were making their mark. Henry Driver, Newbold’s and others established Dunedin as a Mecca for bibliophiles. Scribes, Hard to Find Books and Galaxy Books and others continue that tradition today.

The stories of retailers such as Whitcombe and Tombs, the University Book Shop and Bob Stables already fill many pages. The stories of dozens of others who are part of Dunedin’s book history make fascinating reading and should really be in a book.

- Jim Sullivan is researching a history of bookselling in Dunedin and memories. He welcomes any comments or information about bookshops. Email: history@xtra.co.nz.

Comments

Octavious! A glorious morning comrade!

"Soon may the Weller man come
Bring us whisky, tea and rum
Someday when the tonguing is done
We'll take our leave and go".

Reflective mood, is it, Eightvious?