The Petherick Reading Room is the only reading room in the National Library of Australia named after an individual. Visitors to the Library are often heard to remark, 'What's a Petherick?' Of course, it's not a 'what' but a 'who'--Edward Augustus Petherick (1847-1917).

This year marks 100 years since the committee of the then Commonwealth Parliamentary Library signed an agreement to acquire Edward Petherick's collection of Australasian and Pacific Islands material. The collection of about 16 500 titles formed the nucleus of the Library's holdings of Australiana.

Petherick was a bookseller, bibliographer and collector. Born in Somerset, United Kingdom, his father ran a bookshop and set up a small circulating library and reading room on his premises. Petherick later noted, 'I was born (I may say) in a library, I do not remember a time when I was unable to read.' With the false modesty for which he was notorious, Petherick also claimed to recall an impression of every book that had ever passed through his hands during his career. At 18 years of age, he professed to being a 'walking catalogue to a collection of 100 000 volumes'.

Petherick's parents emigrated to Melbourne in March 1853. In 1862, Edward became a member of staff of the well-known bookseller and publisher, George Robertson. Robertson thought so highly of his young employee that in 1870 he sent Petherick to London to select books for Robertson's growing Australian outlets. By 1873, Petherick was managing Robertson's London office at a handsome salary of 520...