[TASMANIA; WINE] Licence issued to Messrs. Henty & Company, Launceston, in pursuance of An Act for the Licensing of Wholesale Dealers in Wine and Sprituous Liquors. January 1842.

[Hobart Town : s.n.], 1842. Foolscap folio, 330 x 200 mm, letterpress printed recto only on laid paper with Britannia watermark; the manuscript entries record the successful application by Messrs. Henty & Co., Launceston, for a licence ‘to be a Dealer, under the said Act, In Wine and in Brandy, Rum, Gin, Whiskey, Cordials, and other Spirituous Liquors, and to sell, exchange, or otherwise dispose of, in any quantity not less than Five Gallons, all or any of the said Liquors, in or upon any of the said places or premises…’; the physical description of the premises is supplied in manuscript: ‘a Brick Store containing a Cellar and three floors, and a Weather boarded Store adjoining situated in Cimetere [i.e. Cimitiere] Street, Launceston, and Her Majesty’s Bonded Warehouses’; the document is dated 14 January 1842, and is signed in the bottom margin ‘Collector of Internal Revenues’; in fine condition (ink spot in left margin from the clerical quill!).

A unique piece of Henty ephemera that attests to the family’s abiding interest in the wine and alcohol industries, both of which were significant branches of James Henty’s business enterprises in Tasmania and later on in Victoria.

The early generations of the Henty family in Australia were significant pioneers and landholders in the Swan River Colony, Van Diemen’s Land and Port Phillip. James Henty (1800-1882) moved from Swan River in Western Australia to Launceston in 1831, and his father Thomas (1775-1839) joined him there with three more of his sons, one of whom, Edward Henty (1810-1878), sailed across Bass Strait to Portland Bay from Launceston in October 1834, where, despite being unauthorised settlers, the family would soon make its fortune from commercial whaling and from sheep farming in the rich hinterland Sir Thomas Mitchell had dubbed Australia Felix. Among the items Edward took with him on that first 34-day voyage was a cask of grape cuttings. In Portland Edward built a homestead and established an orchard, in which he planted his cuttings and also vines sent by his father Thomas from Launceston, which had been obtained from Fawkner’s nursery on Windmill Hill. Although its fate is unknown, Edward Henty’s vineyard was the first planted in what is now Victoria.

Provenance: Robert Muir Old & Rare Books, Perth (Catalogue 74, 1981, #530); ex Peter Dodds (1929-1980)

Peter Dodds was a notable Australian antiquarian book collector and antique dealer, Melbourne-born but based in Perth from 1949, and later York, Western Australia, from 1976. See: Australian book collectors : some noted Australian book collectors & collections of the nineteenth & twentieth centuries / edited by Charles Stitz, volume 1, pp 97-98 (Bendigo : Bread Street Press, 2010).

In 1981 Robert Muir issued two catalogues (69 and 74) that featured 950 lots comprising the cream of Dodds’ private collection, including much Australian colonial material (books, maps, engravings and ephemera) of major significance. In his introduction to the first of these catalogues Muir wrote: ‘The Dodds Collection was certainly one of the most important, extensive and erudite ever to be assembled and shown in Western Australia. It was catholic in taste and direction, though Peter himself had a great knowledge of, and appreciation for, such areas as maritime and land history and exploration (with a bias to Bligh’s Bounty); the convict era; limited editions; early domestic furniture and appliances; and by no means least, West Australiana … This is the first truly substantial and West Australian based Library ever to be assembled then later catalogued for sale in this state.’