Alfred and Minnie Lee family scrapbooks

MLMSS 11869/Boxes 1X-2X

fonds

approximately 1886-1936

Textual Records, Photographs, Ephemera

9670895

1.12 metres of textual and graphic material (2 outsize boxes)

Businessman, sportsman and book collector Alfred Lee (1858-1923) began collecting Australiana in his early thirties. Lee’s collection attracted the attention of friend and rival collector David Scott Mitchell, especially when in 1888, Lee’s London agents secured the handwritten Endeavor journal of Sir Joseph Banks. Lee, Frank Bladen and Mitchell founded the (Royal) Australian Historical Society in 1901. In December 1906, Alfred Lee sold his collection to David Scott Mitchell, and it became part of the founding collection of the Mitchell Library.
Minnie Lee (1860-1938) was the first female member of the (Royal) Australian Historical Society and a member of the Society of Women Writers of New South Wales. Minnie was also one of the foundation members of the Australian Red Cross Society in 1913 and a hardworking member of the executive throughout the first World War. She was honorary director of the Lady Mayoress's Red Cross Sewing Guild which had some 2000 workers. Minnie was also active in in the Citizens' Association and the National Council of Women and was a foundation member of the Queen’s Club Sydney. A warm and gracious hostess in her own home and as honorary secretary of the Victoria League's hospitality committee, she welcomed overseas visitors, who appreciated her kindness. Minnie Lee was a friend of David Scott Mitchell’s confidante Rose Scott.
References: 1. Biography - Alfred Lee - Australian Dictionary of Biography (anu.edu.au); 2. 'Alfred Lee a collector of historical books amidst other achievements, by his daughter Norah St George Butter 1958', Collection - State Library of NSW

By descent to the donor from her mother Janet, who was Alfred Lee’s granddaughter.

Two large leather bound volumes labelled ‘Prints Australasia’, created as family scrapbooks and photograph albums documenting the lives and interests of Alfred and Minnie Lee, approximately 1886-1936.

First volume (red binding) contains news clippings and ephemera, invitations, menus, postcards, Christmas cards, tickets, postage stamps, with some photographs of the Lee’s property 'Glen Roona' in Bondi. Also includes clippings and ephemera commemorating royal visits, deaths and coronations, the history of flight in Australia, the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge as well as other key figures and significant moments in Australian history.

Second volume (green binding) contains photographs of the gardens and interior of the Lee’s Bondi property ‘Glen Roona’. Seven pages of the volume where trimmed to stubs at the margin and pages from a photographic album attached to them. These photographs document extended family members with annotations and Lee’s participation in sport, mostly tennis and rugby. Photographs also include two fine portraits of Minnie Lee taken by May Moore and the Swiss Studios Sydney. This volume also includes correspondence, condolence letters to Minnie Lee on the death of Alfred in 1923, and letters between Minnie Lee and the Mitchell Library about the donation of Alfred’s correspondence.

These scrapbooks were not included in the sale of Alfred Lee's vast collection to David Scott Mitchell in 1906, and were likely assembled by Minnie Lee or her children in the 1930s. Much of the content postdates Alfred’s death in 1923. Included are clippings on the treasures in the Dixson Galleries, the presentation of the Tasman map to the Mitchell Library and the 1923 purchase of the Cook Diary. Other notable inclusions are original letters from Mary Lygon (daughter of NSW Governor William Beauchamp) at Government House Sydney accepting the Lees’ offer to lend them the Joseph Banks Journal for viewing; Mr and Mrs Lee’s invitation to the 1910 opening of the Mitchell Library; letters from Ida Leeson and Mitchell Librarian Hugh Wright related to correspondence Minnie Lee had sent detailing her husband’s activities ‘in collecting Australiana’.

Out of copyright: Scrapbooks contain news clippings, ephemera and original photographs. Photographs are out of copyright (pre-1955). News clippings are mostly from 1936 and beforehand, but some may still be in copyright as it’s possible some identifiable authors were still alive in 1955.