Summary

Foolscap, hard-covered notebook with blank label, and ruled pages.

The notebook belonged to the donor's father, James Charles Smith, who trained as an accountant. He went blind temporarily during the training, but used his skills to keep the family's accounts for years to come. Several of the notebooks were donated to Museum Victoria, the latest dating to 1966.

Physical Description

Foolscap, black hard-covered notebook, covered in pale blue cloth, with brown buckram spine and corner detail. Marbled end papers. Marbled text block edges. Maker's label on interior front cover. Hand-wiritten inscription in pencil on fisrt page only. Lined horizontally in blue.

Significance

Statement of Significance:

This collection of accounting notebooks provide a rare insight into daily life in Melbourne in the early- to mid-20th century, set within a comprehensive family story at a known location. The listing of daily staples purchased provide a significant document of what was being eaten, how much coal, electricity and other resources were needed to run the house, and expenses such as clothing, a mortgage, insurance and school fees. The author includes rare gems such as what an ideal home would contain in 1922 (including number of rooms and furnishings), how many clothes a woman would need, and what was done to the home when it was renovated in 1954, 32 years after the family moved in.

The notebooks also provide an insight into their author, recalled by his daughter as a ' very black and white' person, a strict teatotaller and Presbyterian, who clearly organized and controlled his family's circumstances carefully. He became a justice (self-taught) in the Children's Court, within the Children's Welfare Department.

Further research will test the extent to which this family might be considered broadly representative of middle-class Melbourne experience.

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