RETIREMENT OF THE CHIEF LIBRARIAN AUSTIN GRAHAM BAGNALL

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 6, Issue 2, 1 October 1973, Page 36

RETIREMENT OF THE CHIEF LIBRARIAN AUSTIN GRAHAM BAGNALL

Nigel Williams

Mr Bagnall’s retirement took effect from 15 May 1973. He had taken up his duties in March 1966, but as he said in a farewell speech, his relationship with the Library could be compared with a life-long love affair, and he hoped for various minor illicit contacts to continue even now after the affair was at an end. Graham Bagnall first joined the Turnbull staff in 1937, the year in which he gained his M.A. from Victoria University College, with first class honours in Philosophy, and two years later became Assistant Chief Librarian. From 1941 to 1945 he served in the Navy Office and was then seconded for a short time to the War Histories branch of the Department of Internal Affairs until, in 1946, he became the first librarian of the newly created National Library Centre of the old National Library Service, now incorporated in the National Library. It is of the next twenty years there that Mr G. T. Alley, first National Librarian, treats in a tribute from which the following extracts are taken.

‘With skill, courage and perseverance he made, or arranged to have made by the appropriate authorities, plans for the beginning or further development of vital national bibliographical projects. The National Bibliography begins more or less formally in 1948, after a discussion with the Library Resources Committee of the New Zealand Library Association. The Union List of Serials and the Index to New Zealand Periodicals, both initiated on a part-time basis through professional zeal in the New Zealand Library Association, found their permanent home in the Centre soon after his appointment. His acceptance of the quite demanding job of Secretary of the Book Resources (later, Library Resources) Committee of the NZLA made possible a long period of intense development of much needed bibliographical and co-operative projects. ‘Always a realist, never, of course, a mere joiner of committees, Mr. Bagnall has made a distinctive contribution to the work of national bodies, including the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO

‘Among the great libraries whose principals, past or present, came here were Harvard University, the British Museum, the Library of Congress. One of Mr. Bagnall’s many, but lesser known, contributions to library development was to act as interpreter, guide and friend to some of these eminent people, who included Mr. and Mrs. K. D. Metcalf, Mr. and Mrs. A. D. Osborn, Sir Frank and Lady Francis, and Mr. L. Quincy Mumford. . . .

‘Tasks manfully accepted, though accepting them meant adding to the heavy burden he carried, included two spells, each of over six months, in 1960 and 1961, as Acting Director of the National Library Service. In these two periods, mainly in the earlier one, there arose the difficult matter of overseeing the attempted launching of the pilot regional library scheme for Manawatu-Wairarapa. Mr. Bagnall’s address on the failure of this attempt —to the NZLA conference of 1962 at New Plymouth—was a classical study in frankness and compression.

‘The growth of the idea of a strong National Library for New Zealand owes much to him. Many influences can be noted, from his early (1946) survey of the libraries of Government departments in Wellington, through his work on the NZLA committee on the Wellington libraries (1951), to his part in the preparation of reports for the key committees studying the National Library proposal, and, later, his invaluable help in drafting and re-drafting material for ministers and Cabinet. . . .

‘Yet it is as a fighter, and as a fortunate man, that many of his contemporaries will think of him. Fighter, yes, because through the apparently unfruitful years of the 1950’s he laboured, battled and never gave up in the struggle towards an orderly, logical development in a national library setting for the work he knew had to be done. In his more than seven years as Chief Librarian of the Alexander Turnbull Library he has, of course, been a fighter for the part he sees for the library in the setting of the National Library as a whole.

‘And he has been, is, fortunate, because some of the things he fought and worked for, with others, have been won. Many of the things he has done and written, unaided, stand for the record. And we are fortunate, too, in having this man among us.’ Graham Bagnall has been no cloistered librarian in an ivory tower. A long-distance champion in his youth, he exchanged running for tramping for many years. He served on the council of the Polynesian Society from 1939 to 1955 and was deputy chairman of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust from 1959 to 1965, being awarded honorary life membership in 1969.

The New Zealand Library Association has owed much to him over a very long period. He served several terms on the council of the Association, became a fellow in 1955, was vice-president 1962-64 and president 1964-65 and was elected honorary life member in 1971, the same year in which the Association awarded A. G. Bagnall the John Harris award for his outstanding contribution to New Zealand bibliography. He was editor of New Zealand Libraries 1946-47, convener of the Publications Committee 1956-63, and was responsible in 1941 for the first two quarterly

issues by the Association of the Index to New Zealand Periodicals and the cumulation of the Index from 1941 to 1945 (published 1949) as well as editing the annual volumes from 1951 to 1957. He was also responsible for the two supplements to John Harris’s Guide to New Zealand Reference Material in 1951 and 1957, and for organising a series of conference seminars for librarians of New Zealand collections.

In 1945 the National Library Centre was established as a division of the National Library Service, taking over from the Country Library Service various activities for which the Association had expressed a need, including the Union Catalogue, the Central Bureau for Library Book Imports, book resources activity (he was secretary of the Library Resources Committee throughout from 1946 to 1966) and the central handling of inter-library loans. Graham Bagnall, with characteristic energy and enthusiasm, pressed on with these various activities as well as assuming responsibility in 1949 for the Union List of Serials in New Zealand Libraries and, in 1955, for the Index to New Zealand Periodicals. In 1959 he acted as the New Zealand Associate to Dr Andrew Osborn who, under the auspices of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, undertook for the Association a report on New Zealand Library resources.

This intense activity over so many years in the fields of librarianship and bibliography has tended to be overlooked since the New Zealand National Bibliography began to be published in 1969, with the appearance of Vol. II (1890-1960, A-H). Mr Bagnall is the editor and principal compiler, and began work on the project, and will remain in this capacity on a contract basis until publication is completed in four volumes of approximately 9,000 main entries each, and a final index volume. Vol. 11l was published in 1972, Vol. IV is to be published next year and Vol. I (to 1889) is expected by the end of 1975, as planned.

Librarian, bibliographer and historian, author and editor. The Friends of the Turnbull will scarcely need to be reminded of the sterling work Graham Bagnall has done as editor of the Record since 1967, and will rejoice with the committee that he will continue in this capacity also. Apart from library editing, noted above, he was also editor and part author of Early Castle point, 1848-1948, and author of three other Wairarapa centennial histories, Old Greytown (1953), Masterton’s First Hundred Years (1954) and A History of Carterton (1957). An even more important work, already a New Zealand classic, is the 1948 work in collaboration with Dr G. C. Petersen, William Colenso; printer, missionary, botanist, explorer, politician, surely a kindred multi-faceted spirit.

Most recent volume from his pen, Okiwi: European occupation of the Eastern Bays Port Nicholson (1972), was hand-set and published by Graham Bagnall himself at his Mahina Press (the printer was C. G. Bagnall, and a limited number of the 575 printed were specially bound by Mrs Bagnall), thus adding printer and, indeed, typographer to his other accomplishments. In his retirement he is preparing a history of Wairarapa, commissioned by the Masterton Trust Lands Trust, and is at last able to give the time he would wish to more intensive research into what has been his favourite study for over twenty years, the history of the Tongariro area. When it appears, his twovolume book, Tongariro and the ways to it, will undoubtedly be the definitive work on the area.

Despite his modest wish to be spared official farewells from the Turnbull scene, Mr Bagnall’s position and career demanded no fewer than three. First came a staff farewell in the Library on Tuesday 15 May, the day of his official retirement. The National Librarian (Mr D. C. Mclntosh) introduced two long-time colleagues of Mr Bagnall, and they spoke briefly to Turnbull staff and senior members of other sections who had worked with him. Mr Murray-Oliver recalled earlier Turnbull days when that incredible energy and omniscience in New Zealand history staggered one as much as they still do, and an always open door for ready assistance and advice. Mr Olsson developed the theme further, and enumerated an almost endless list of activities in just one year at the National Library Centre. In this and subsequent functions sadness at losing a friend and leader blended with pleasure that now he might have more time for his own research. Miss Margery Walton, the Reference Librarian, presented Mr and Mrs Bagnall with a dozen Waterford crystal glasses, together with sixteen Avon prints in a large folder, handsomely covered by Jeavons Baillie in a rich vieux rose linen, bearing a William Morris design.

On Wednesday 16 May, the Council of the N.Z. Library Association, in conjunction with the Wellington Branch, held a wine and cheese evening to honour Mr Bagnall. Miss M. A. Ronnie, City Librarian, Dunedin Public Library, and President of the Association, introduced two speakers. Mr W. J. McEldowney, Librarian of the University of Otago, spoke of long associations in both the National Library Service and the Library Association. Mr G. T. Alley traversed the Bagnall saga and the great contributions made to librarianship and scholarship both in and outside these two institutions. The guest of honour, in his reply, as on all three occasions, characteristically disclaimed any great credit and paid tribute to all who had assisted him in so many projects, too many of which, he felt, were still unfinished.

The Friends of the Turnbull Library, in association with the Alexander Turnbull Library Endowment Trust Board, farewelled Graham Bagnall on Friday 18 May. About 160 guests attended a sherry party, coming from as far afield as Masterton, Nelson, Taihape and Wanganui. The Chairman of Trustees (Sir Alister Mclntosh, K.C.M.G.) opened proceedings, speaking of the admiration and respect all felt for Mr Bagnall and of his unremitting efforts for the Library he loves. Sir Alister added that, as a tribute to these qualities, and in recognition of the services Mr Bagnall had already rendered, the Endowment Trust Board would be offering him financial assistance on his next foray overseas.

Professor D. F. McKenzie, President of the Friends, then referred to the warm generosity manifest in the response to an invitation to the Friends to contribute toward a gift for Graham Bagnall, a warmth that could also be felt in the splendid feeling that suffused the room that evening. He presented, from the Friends and from members of the Endowment Trust Board, a copy of the newly-published Portraits of the New Zealand Maori by G. F. Angas, and hoped that it might be possible to disarm Mr BagnalPs diffidence at receiving a present himself by the simultaneous gift of a rare book to the Library. In reply, Mr Bagnall said how touched he was by so ingenious a way of recognising the happy years he had spent at the Turnbull; he had always regarded working there as a rare privilege. When he came as Chief Librarian, he felt he knew what he wanted to do, ‘and one has to interpret a job in the capacity of one’s limits’. He added that his successor, Mr J. E. Traue, whom he commended to those present, would interpret his job in quite a different way. Mr Bagnall, in his turn, paid tribute to all those to whom he owed so much—the Committee of the Friends and successive presidents, the former Chairman of Trustees, the late Sir John Ilott, and now Sir Alister, and the Turnbull staff, only six of whom survive from 1966.

The book presented in the name of the Friends by Professor McKenzie is The Spelling Dictionary, by Thomas Dyche, the fourth edition, of 1737. Eighteen thousand copies of this dictionary were printed, but only four now survive, and only one matches this, being in the National Library in Rome. Further interest is added since, ‘in recognition of another of Mr BagnalPs activities’, it bears a hand-set, hand-printed label recording the presentation of the book to the Library on behalf of the Friends of the Turnbull Library to mark the retirement of Graham Bagnall.