Further research is underway.

Impact on Brisbane Society

The Aquinas Library was established in 1932 by the Christian Brothers’ Old Boys’ Literary and Debating Society. Important Queensland Catholic literary figures donated items to the Aquinas Library. The collection had around 15,000 items dating back to the 1800s. Donators included Martin Haley, Rev. T.P. Boland, Rev. O.K. Oxenham and John P. Kelly. The inaugural Aquinas Lecture was delivered in 1944 by John Kelly in the rooms of the Aquinas Library. The lecture series ran yearly at the Aquinas Library from 1944-1950. It was re-established in 1979 by the Aquinas Library and later continued by the ACU Brisbane campus.

Citations

Buckridge, Patrick; McKay, Belinda. By the Book: a Literary History of Queensland, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, Qld, 2007.

Hatherell, William J. The Third Metropolis: Imagining Brisbane through Art and Literature, 1940-1970,University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, Qld, 2007.

Hills, Frank. ‘The rise and fall of the Aquinas Library, 1933-1991’, Proceedings (Brisbane Catholic Historical Society), vol. 4, no. 1994, pp. 47-77.

Image Citations

AQUINAS LIBRARY OPENED. The Telegraph, Monday 1 June 1936, p. 2. NLA Trove