The Port Phillip Exercise Book.

[Melbourne : s.n., probably between 1880 and 1890]. Large octavo (210 x 165 mm), original pictorial wrappers, the upper wrapper with lithographed cartouche illustrations with sport and recreation themes that feature some familiar Port Phillip landmarks, including a football, cricket (at the MCG), tennis, yachting (at Queenscliff), rowing (under Princes Bridge), penny-farthing riding (around “The Tan”), and boys skinny-dipping (on the banks of the Yarra), with a faint pencilled name ‘A. Maher’; the lower wrapper with multiplication table and lists of weights and measures, and with the name ‘Alice Maher’ inscribed twice in ink; [28] pp., faint-ruled paper with manuscript in ink throughout, including Alice’s dictations (with corrections), compositions, and arithmetic problems, as well as a few of her accomplished pencil sketches at the rear; the first dictation is dated 15 November 1899, and the latest date in the exercise book is 18 June 1900; the contents have separated from the wrappers, but are complete; some occasional and very light foxing, otherwise clean and legible throughout.

A charming school exercise book, kept by a young Bendigo girl in the period just prior to Federation. Internal references tell us that it belonged to Alice Maher, of McIvor Road, Axedale, Bendigo. In the 1899 school year, Alice was an outstanding 5th class student (so she was most likely 10 going on 11) at the Gravel Hill State School, who was awarded a prize for her academic work (The Bendigo Independent, 17 March 1900). In the 1898 Bendigo Horticultural Society’s Autumn Show, Alice had also won a prize in the “Girls” category for best chrysanthemum, which explains the presence of her botanical drawing of a Lilium Philippinense in this exercise book; and in 1904 she was presented with a family Bible as a St. Paul’s Cathedral Sunday school examination prize (The Bendigo Independent, 21 April 1904).

The imagery and typography on the front cover suggest that the exercise book was most likely printed some time before Alice used it for her schoolwork – probably between 1880 and 1890, which makes it very much a product of “Marvellous Melbourne”.

The content of the dictations and compositions (including practice in letter writing) ranges from missionaries and tribal customs in New Guinea, to rats, wombats, the Relief of Mafeking celebrations in Victoria, and the tea tree. Most pre-teens today would doubtless find some of the dictations challenging. For example: ‘… wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odour assailed his nostrils unlike any scent which he had before experienced. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip.…’

We have been able to locate only two examples of The Port Phillip Exercise Book in institutional collections: one of those, which was used by Alfred William Howitt (1830-1908) to make manuscript notes on various publications relating to Australian Aborigines, is held by Museums Victoria (Alfred W. Howitt Collection, XM 454); the other is in the Melbourne Cricket Club Museum (M13476), where it is dated in error “1920-50”.