[SYDNEY] Walter Bradley & Co. Attractive sale by auction of superior furniture … Choice Collection of Pictures … Valuable Library of Books …

and many other Art Treasures collected from time to time … In the deceased Estate of the late Mr Walter Bradley … Removed from his late residence “Sunnyside,” Allison Road, Randwick, for the convenience of the Public, to the Old Bank Auction Rooms, 322 George Street, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday, 24th, 26th and 27th October, 1893. Sydney : F. Cunninghame & Co., printers, 1893. Octavo (210 x 135 mm), original pale blue wrappers printed in decorative fonts in brown and navy (light staining and creasing, staples rusted, old tape repairs on the inside of both wrappers), pp. [32]; scattered foxing, last leaf with small tape repairs.

A rare and fascinating Sydney auction catalogue for the estate of auctioneer Walter Bradley. No other extant example traced.

London-born Walter Bradley (1836-1893) arrived penniless in Sydney in 1854, but after stints working as an auctioneer for Cohen & Harbottle and Robert Muriel, he was able to establish Bradley, Norton and Lamb, auctioneers, in 1859. Bradley was hugely successful in business, and a model citizen: he was elected Mayor of Randwick on three occasions, and in 1891 served briefly as a MLA for East Sydney. He was a co-founder of the Zoological Society of New South Wales and of the Zoological Gardens at Moore Park.

The contents of Bradley’s Randwick residence, “Sunnyside”, are itemised in this auction catalogue which was produced by his own firm (naturally). The numerous sections include glassware, China, electro-plated ware, sterling silver, dining-room furniture, library furniture, drawing-room furniture, bedroom furniture, “Valuable Library of Books” with 350 titles including Cook, Hawkesworth, La Perouse, Parkinson, Peron, Phillip, White, Collins, Grant, Hunter, Bligh, Tench, Dixon, Oxley, Tuckey, Barrington, Cunningham, Grey, King, Stokes, Leichhardt, Mitchell, Wentworth, Westgarth, Darwin’s Origin of Species (edition not specified), Swainson’s Birds, Gould’s Humming Birds and Birds of New Guinea in parts, Broinowski’s Birds of Australia in parts, etc. etc.), and a “Valuable Collection of Pictures” including Neville Cayley watercolours – Seagulls and Bird of Paradise – and works by Fletcher-Watson, J. H. Carse, and Nicholas Shields.