Samuel Wood, wholesale stationer, printer and bookseller : postcard and related photographic collection, 1907-1956

PXA 1058
PXE 939
ON 275

fonds

1907-1956

Graphic Materials, Photographs, Textual Records

446625

Photographs - 9.2 x 14.2 cm. or smaller - 386 postcards
Photographs - 30 x 38 cm. or smaller - 932 mainly silver gelatin photoprints
Photographs - 12 x 16.3 cm. or smaller - 617 mainly glass photonegatives
Photographs - 262 digital photographs (copies of nitrate photonegatives, chiefly 9 x 15 cm.)
Textual Records - 2 exercise books

Samuel Wood was possibly the oldest remaining wholesale bookseller and stationer in Sydney at his death, according to W.G. Smart, Hodder's Sydney representative.
He was born in Hackney, London in 1876 and started work in a newsagency and bookshop aged 10, having lost both parents. By the age of 20, he was managing the F. & E. Stoneham bookshop in Cheapside, London.
Due to poor health he migrated to Sydney, starting a book & stationery business in Angel Place immmediately in 1905. He obtained the Australian agency for the postcards of John Beagles & Co. From 1913-1928 his business (by then including a printing department) was located at 35 York Street but the construction of the underground railway obliged him to move to 433 Kent Street, its final location during Samuel's life. The business later moved, under Ronald, to Bunn Street, Pyrmont.
His fourth son, Ronald, joined the business in 1935 and was made a partner in 1946 after his return from war service. In 1952 the business was made into a company with Samuel as Chairman. He attended daily till a few months before his death.
Wood was a founding member of Roseville Bowling Club.
He was survived by his widow and three sons, after one son in the RAAF was killed only about five weeks after receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC).
Sources -- The Bookseller, no.2664, Sat, Jan 12 1957, p.51 ; Ideas, Jan 17 1957, p.96
Samuel Wood's 2 door American coupe can be seen in many of his postcard photographs -- R.Woodley, cataloguer

This collection comprises 138 record series. You may navigate to a more detailed description of each series from this collection record.¶Material was sorted into geographical groupings according to the titles on the individual items or boxes. Glass negatives were chiefly unidentified and these were sorted, titled and arranged by the cataloguer. Note there may be misidentifications of glass negatives. -- Aug 2005

Collection dated from the earliest date on a Samuel Wood postcard (1907), to the year before his death (1956), as he worked in the business with one of his sons almost until his death. Samuel started the book and stationery business in 1905 and some of the photographs are pre-1907. -- R.Woodley, cataloguer
For details of Samuel Wood's postcard business, see -- Picture postcards in Australia 1898-1920 / David Cook. Lilydale, Vic. : Pioneer Design Studio, 1986, (pp.40,107,155-156)
Nitrate photonegatives - digital images only held. Originals digitally copied and disposed (unstable medium)
Published albums, folders of postcards and other ephemera transferred to Ephemera (July 2005)