Skip to main content
  1. The Dictionary of Sydney
  2. Multimedia
  3. Mitchell Library in course of construction Marc...

Mitchell Library in course of construction March 1907. Australian Club in foreground.

From the collections of the
State Library of New South Wales
[a1528217 / V1/Lib/Mit/2]
(Mitchell Library)

Browse

  • Browse
    • Artefacts
    • Buildings
    • Events
    • Natural Features
    • Organisations
    • People
    • Places
    • Structures
    • Entries
    • Multimedia
    • Subjects
    • Roles
    • Contributors
Connections
Appears in
Mitchell, David Scott The Mitchell
Subjects
Clubs and Societies Construction Libraries
Buildings
Mitchell Library building State Library of New South Wales building
Organisation
Australian Club Mitchell Library State Library of New South Wales
Places
Macquarie Street The Domain

Footer

  • Home
  • About
  • Copyright
  • Contact

Footer Secondary

  • Contribute
  • Donate

State Library of New South Wales

The Mitchell

For a century the Mitchell Library has been Sydney's memory, a storehouse of treasures and a club of eccentric scholars. It is all but impossible to write or read about the history of Australia, the Pacific and the Antarctic without being in debt to the great collector and eccentric recluse David Scott Mitchell.

Mitchell, David Scott

The Mitchell Library was officially opened on 9 March 1910, three years after the death of its acclaimed benefactor, David Scott Mitchell, on 24 July 1907. Approximately 40,000 volumes were given to the new library along with a large collection of manuscript journals, diaries and letters, thousands of prints, maps and charts, pictures and portraits, miniatures, bookplates, coins and medals. Just over 100 years later, Mitchell's bequest to Sydney, to New South Wales and to Australia, remains remarkable.

Clubs and Societies

Construction

Libraries

Mitchell Library building

full record »

The Mitchell Library building was erected in 1910 to house David Scott Mitchell's collection of Australiana which he had bequeathed to the people of New South Wales. In 1942 the building was extended and incorporated the New South Wales government's Free Public Library. The Mitchell Library is part of the State Library of New South Wales.

State Library of New South Wales

The State Library of NSW is the oldest library in Australia. In 1869 the NSW Government purchased the Australian Subscription Library, which had been established in 1826, to form the Sydney Free Public Library, the first truly public library for the people of NSW. The Mitchell Library, the first library in the country to concentrate entirely on Australian content, opened in 1910.

full record »

Macquarie Street

Street at the eastern edge of Sydney's central business district, designed as a ceremonial thoroughfare by Lachlan Macquarie and containing many of Sydney's public buildings. It was later the best address in the colony, and became a prestigious medical precinct in the twentieth century.

full record »

The Domain

full record »

Park in central Sydney which dates from the colony's earliest days.

Australian Club

Private men-only club with headquarters at Macquarie Street. It is the oldest gentlemen's club in the southern hemisphere.

full record »

Mitchell Library

Part of the State Library of New South Wales, the Mitchell Library collection is based on the bequest of David Scott Mitchell, a book collector who amassed an unequalled collection of books on Australia. The collection has continued to grow.

full record »

State Library of New South Wales building

Complex comprising the State Reference Library and the Mitchell Library buildings on Macquarie Street. The sandstone Mitchell wing opened in 1910 and was extended in 1942 to incorporate the New South Wales government's Free Public Library. The Macquarie Street wing where the State Reference Library is housed opened in 1988.

full record »