Father Hayes was a collector of material in many different fields of knowledge from minerals to Aboriginal artefacts to postage stamps, but there is no more importatnt part of his collection than his literary materials - both printed books and manuscripts. For forty years these materials have buttressed research in Australian literature at The University of Queensland

Tiffin, Chris

University of Queensland eSpace

Fryer Folios18
Since the acquisition of the 
Hayes collection in 1967 Fryer 
has purchased or acquired 
through donation much current 
and retrospective printed 
material and many significant 
manuscript collections of 
more recent writers, but 
it has never had another 
donation to be mentioned 
in the same breath as the 
Hayes Collection. With 
over 25,000 books1 
and rich manuscript 
collections connected 
with key early Australian 
literary figures such 
as Mary Gilmore and 
A. G. Stephens, the 
Hayes Collection 
brought to Fryer a 
body of material that 
could never have been assembled 
piecemeal if one had started in the 1960s.
Although he was prouder of his book 
collection than he was of his manuscripts2, 
it is the Hayes manuscript collection that 
has been the more important for literary 
research. Two early pieces of research 
that were enabled by the acquisition 
of the Hayes collection were those on 
Barbara Baynton and on A. G. Stephens. 
In 1974 Sally Krimmer revisited Baynton 
in her honours thesis, using the Hayes 
collection to clarify the process of revision 
of the stories. This work subsequently fed 
into the Baynton volume edited by Sally 
Krimmer and Alan Lawson3 in the then 
1  This seems to be the agreed figure, although Father 
Hayes made somewhat wilder claims from time to time. 
He told The Bulletin in 1947 that he had “about 60,000 
items of Australiana”, and to Cecil Hadgraft in the 1960s 
he estimated that his library held “a million volumes”
2 Information from Nancy Bonnin, Oct 2007
3  Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, eds., Barbara Baynton 
(St. Lucia, UQP, 1980)
Portable Australian Authors series.4 
Another early user was Leon Cantrell, 
the first to explore the A. G. Stephens 
manuscripts seriously. In 1977 Cantrell 
edited, A. G. Stephens, Selected Writings,5 
drawing on the Hayes collection as well 
as those at the Mitchell and National, 
but he also edited the publishing diary 
that A. G. Stephens maintained for 
several decades and that is now held in 
the Hayes collection.6 One of the most 
recent users of the collection has been 
Associate Professor Jenny Strauss, of 
Monash University, whose formidable 
two-volume Academy edition of Mary 
Gilmore’s poems7 has drawn heavily on 
the Hayes manuscripts to clarify Gilmore’s 
extraordinarily complex publication 
record, even though the edition does not 
include manuscript versions themselves.
I first became involved with the Hayes 
collection in 1968 as an MA student 
when my supervisor, a very great Friend 
of Fryer, the late Cecil Hadgraft, steered 
me towards an item in the collection – a 
cuttings book of criticism of Australian 
literature that had been compiled by the 
anthologist and critic, Bertram Stevens. 
Stevens had been excising critical articles 
on Australian writers from English and 
Australian magazines, and had bound them 
in a solid (if rather ugly) volume. Father 
Hayes had owned this item for some time 
– he mentions it in an interview in late 
1947, saying that Stevens intended to write 
a history of Australian criticism but never 
4  Published by UQP. The series name was subsequently 
changed to “Australian Authors” under threat of legal 
action from Viking, the publishers of the American 
“Portable” series
5 London, Angus & Robertson, 1977
6  “A. G. Stephens’s Bulletin Diary,” Cross Currents : 
Magazines and Newspapers in Australian Literature, ed. 
Bruce Bennett, Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1981, 
pp.35-87
7  Jennifer Strauss, ed. The Collected Verse of Mary Gilmore, 
2 vols. (St. Lucia: UQP, 2004-2007)
Above: 
Herman Theodore Radin’s 
bookplate from the Hayes 
Collection emphasises the 
importance of books with 
a sentiment Father Hayes 
might have agreed with.
FATHER HAYES’ Literature Collection
Father Hayes was a collector of material in many different fields of knowledge from minerals to 
Aboriginal artefacts to postage stamps, but there is no more important part of his collection than 
his literary materials – both printed books and manuscripts. For forty years these materials have 
buttressed research in Australian literature at The University of Queensland. 
December 2007 19
Above: 
Oodgeroo Noonuccal 
inscribed her first book of 
poems We are Going (1964) 
to Father Hayes to mark his 
attendance at her address 
to the Toowoomba Creative 
Writers Group in March 
1965. It is now one of many 
outstanding association copies 
held in the Hayes Collection 
in the Fryer Library.
found the time.8 While this scrapbook was 
only the jumping-off point for my thesis 
project, it was a splendid launching pad. 
Bibliographical resources in the 1960s had 
nothing like the power and immediacy that 
they have today with databases like AustLit, 
WorldCat, and the ill-named Web  
of Science available from one’s keyboard, 
and it would have taken ingenuity, 
hard slog, and high serendipity to have 
located some of the items in the Stevens 
compilation. But apart from the direct 
contribution the collection made to my 
thesis, there was a great deal of educative 
excitement working in Fryer while the 
collection was being sorted, listed, and 
absorbed. Others have spoken of the 
extent of the operation – the four removal 
vans that brought the material down from 
Oakey, the two floors of the library that 
were taken over for a whole summer to do 
the initial sort – but they could not know 
the atmosphere of mystery and excitement 
experienced by a neophyte research 
student month after month as librarians like 
Nancy Bonnin and Spencer Routh glided 
past on Secret Librarians’ Business, and 
Marianne Ehrhardt pounded away listing 
the material on her mysterious, soundless 
typewriter.
How did Father Hayes assemble the 
collection, with no great financial resources 
at his disposal and living for forty years in 
the comparative isolation of parishes at 
Crows Nest (the Queensland one – not 
the Sydney one) and Oakey? The first 
point is that he was a natural collector. 
Father Hanlon suggests elsewhere in 
this issue that Hayes manifested his 
collecting streak as a child. Hayes claimed 
that his Emmaus moment came with his 
determination to build a personal library 
bigger than the 15,000-volume library at 
St Patrick’s seminary at Manly, N.S.W.9 
Secondly, he was a great networker. 
He joined societies like the Queensland 
Authors and Artists Society. He accepted 
speaking engagements and appointment 
to the board of the John Oxley Library 
Committee. He wrote to schools, shires 
and parishes asking if they had published 
centenary histories. Even when he had to 
decline an invitation to attend a celebratory 
event, he sent in his subscription with a 
request for a copy of the programme. But 
most important of all, he established close 
relationships with book dealers.
8  J. B. B. [James Beatton Blair?], “A Man of Books”, The 
Bulletin, 26 Nov. 1947, p.2
9 The Bulletin, ibid
The satisfaction of collecting comes 
partly from pride of ownership, but 
partly from deepening one’s knowledge 
about the field. Such knowledge 
provides entrée to the freemasonry 
of others who collect and deal in the 
same field, and by one’s knowledge 
one earns respect. From the 1920s 
Father Hayes established his credit 
in the freemasonry of Australian 
booksellers. He was not just 
buying from them, but learning 
from them and with them. He 
recommends the poet, Brian 
Vrepont; whom one bookseller 
has not heard of. What does 
the bookseller think of this 
American critic, Hartley Grattan, 
who has recently written about Australian 
literature? It is clear from surviving records 
that Father Hayes was regarded with 
increasing respect by Australian book 
dealers, and was generously treated by 
the trade. Risking the postal service, book 
dealers would regularly send valuable books 
on approval to Crows Nest or Oakey; they 
would send him advance copies of their 
catalogues; they would seek to supply items 
from his wants lists and offer him other 
items that they thought he would like; they 
would offer him better copies of books that 
they had already sold him. Letters from 
H. V. Edwards of Bega, N.S.W. in 1935 show 
the bookseller giving Fr Hayes first offer 
on material, a 10% discount on purchases, 
and leeway to “settle for them by degrees, 
as at present”.10 Sometimes, though, the 
booksellers had to pull on the reins a little. 
On the one hand, Angus and Robertson 
issued a reminder full of old-world courtesy,
May we, whilst expressing our 
appreciation of your past patronage, 
bring to your attention the undernoted 
outstanding amount on your account? 
We feel sure that doing so will be all 
that is necessary to secure attention 
to it, and trust that we shall soon have 
the pleasure of thanking you for your 
remittance in settlement.11 
On the other hand, the bibliographer, 
Percival Serle, allowed his exasperation to 
show: “I have never received the 5/- for the 
Frank Wilmot Memorial volume. It is not 
right that a busy man like my self should 
have to write to you again.”12 
10 Hayes Collection, UQFL 2, Box 5, 2/4817
11 Hayes Collection, UQFL 2, Box 5, 2/4817
12 Hayes Collection, UQFL 2, Box 5, 2/4825
Fryer Folios20
– and the “surprise” is spurious. Father 
Hayes knows very well that his collection 
warrants “intense interest”.
Among the literary strengths of the Hayes 
book collection are privately printed books 
(sometimes no more than pamphlets) 
and association copies. Father Hayes 
seems to have been extremely diligent 
about locating and acquiring books that 
were not distributed through the normal 
trade, and also willing to buy a quantity of 
miscellaneous material in the hope that 
it would contain a gem or two. Thus, a 
Tasmanian book dealer offers him a bundle 
of about 70 “pamphlets, odd periodicals, 
etc”, some of which, the dealer admits, 
may be duplicates of items he has already 
sold him. Individually priced, the collection 
would cost about £12-£15, but if Father 
Hayes would care to take the lot he could 
have them for £4.14 The records don’t 
confirm that the sale went through, but 
it was the sort of offer that Father Hayes 
found hard to resist.
Father Hayes’s known liking for signed 
editions meant that he was offered some 
superb association copies. J. B. O’Hara 
presented an autographed copy of his 
Odes and Lyrics (1906) to the critic and 
editor, Bertram Stevens, who annotated 
it carefully including marking throughout 
what he judged to be echoes from earlier 
English and Australian poets. The final leaf 
contains his summary:
O’Hara has a good ear but is often led 
away by it into meaninglessness. There 
are many phrases from other poets 
scattered through his verses – especially 
polysyllabic ones.
This copy then passed to the White family, 
acquiring the elaborate bookplate of 
Henry L. White of Belltrees, Scone (Patrick 
White’s favourite uncle), and so completed 
an impressive provenance when it was 
added to the Hayes collection.
In putting together his astonishing 
Australian literature collection, Father 
Hayes was sometimes lucky, but it was a 
luck that he largely created for himself by 
being such an indefatigable collector. And it 
is a luck that is shared by anyone who has 
the privilege of using his collection.
CHRIS TIFFIN is an Honorary Research 
Consultant in the School of English, Media 
Studies and Art History at The University 
of Queensland.
14 Hayes Collection, UQFL 2, Box 5, 2/4817
Great collectors, are, of 
course, a little peculiar, if not 
outright crazy. Mark Cryle 
notes in his article above that 
by 1947 Father Hayes had 
decided his collection should 
“remain in Queensland”, 
which declaration has a 
fine public-spirited ring to 
it, and is just the sort of 
thing a collector should say 
in a newspaper interview. 
However, I don’t believe that 
Father Hayes’ intentions for 
the disposal of the collection 
were as clear-cut as that 
implies. Like the Coalition of 
the Willing, he lacked an exit 
strategy. There is a rather 
peculiar, only partially dated memo in the 
papers that raises the spectre (from UQ’s 
point of view) of a much less happy final 
resting place for the collection.
February 28   
Re My Library
After my return from Sydney I 
Was besieged with requests 
To see my library 
Those enquiring have already 
Made requests for men to 
Come and inspect it. 
In view of the fact that so many 
Want to buy the Library 
I have decided to let all 
Applicants put in their 
Tenders If this is not acceptable to them 
I intend 
To withdraw the the [sic] Library 
From sale 
I did not put the Library on 
The market and as [sic] I am 
Surprised at the intense interest 
Displayed by the buyers13 
What do we make of this? If Father Hayes 
hadn’t “put the library on the market”, 
how could he “withdraw [it] from sale”? If 
his library wasn’t for sale, why is he asking 
for tenders for it? How does he move from 
people wanting to “see [the] library” to 
people “want[ing] to buy” it? To whom is 
the memo addressed? This seems to be 
a moderately severe case of Collector’s 
Gloat. Father Hayes had no intention 
of selling the collection, but just for the 
moment he enjoys the prospect of multiple 
people clamouring for it. The memo is to 
himself – a way of formalising the fantasy 
13 Hayes Collection, UQFL 2, Box 9, 2/4930
Above: 
The bookplate of Henry L. 
White of Belltrees, Scone 
(Patrick White’s favourite 
uncle), from the Fryer 
Library’s signed copy of 
J. B. O’Hara’s Odes and 
Lyrics (1906), with Bertram 
Stevens’ annotations.


Father Hayes' literature collection

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Father Hayes' literature collection

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