[Tom Skeyhill collection]
- Bib ID:
- 6578412
- Format:
- Book
- Author:
- Skeyhill, Tom, 1895-1932
- Description:
-
- [1916?-1932?]
- <181> items.
- Summary:
-
The collection comprises about 200 book titles and other assorted ephemeral items (such as programs).
- Biography/History:
-
"Tom Skeyhill was born at Terang, Victoria, the son of Irish immigrants. After completing his education at St Mary's Convent School, Hamilton, he worked as a telegraph messenger and telephonist. A regular competitor in elocution and debating competitions with the Hibernian Society, he earned a significant reputation as a reciter in his teenage years. Skeyhill enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in August 1914 and landed at Anzac Cove as a signaller on 25 April 1915. Several weeks later he was blinded by an exploding Turkish shell, an event that Jeff Brownrigg in his biography of Skeyhill, Anzac Cove to Hollywood (2010), argues as probably fabricated. Skeyhill wrote verse during his convalescence and in November 1915 he recited a number of these in full Gallipoli uniform at Melbourne's Tivoli Theatre. Some of these compositions had been previously published in the London, Cairo and Melbourne press and in December they were collected in book form as Soldier Songs from ANZAC, 'Written in the Firing Line by Signaller Tom Skeyhill'. The collection proved extremely popular, requiring five editions and selling more than twenty thousand copies in four months. As Signaller Tom Skeyhill, 'the blind soldier poet', he toured Australia, lecturing, reciting and raising money for the Red Cross. He was discharged in September 1916 and left Australia the following year to begin a lecturing tour of North America. Skeyhill continued his career on the lecture circuit into the 1930s, speaking about Sergeant York and drawing on many of the topics that had made him famous in the previous decade. He died unexpectedly on 22 May 1932 after a plane he was piloting crashed near his Massachusetts summer home." --Austlit.
- Notes:
-
- Title supplied by cataloguer.
- For related materials see also MS Acc15.139.
- Source of Acquisition:
- Includes inscribed volumes originally donated by Thomas James Skeyhill to the Hamilton Mechanics' Institute in the 1920s; transferred to the Glenelg Regional Library in the 1960s; 200 volumes were returned to the Hamilton History Centre in June 2005; and donated to the National Library of Australia in late 2014. Some pages appear to have been removed from some volumes. The Age newspaper of 2 March 1925 states that the collection then comprised 318 volumes.
- Subject:
- Related Records:
-
This is a collection.
This collection contains 181 records. - Copyright:
-
Out of Copyright
Contact us for information about copying.
- Reason for copyright status:
- Since 2002 [Creator Date of Death + 70 Years]
Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary Dramatic Musical
- Presumed date of death of creator (latest date):
- 1932
- Published status:
- Unpublished
- Creation date:
- 1916
Copyright status may not be correct if data in the record is incomplete or inaccurate. Other access conditions may also apply. For more information please see: Copyright in library collections.
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