The Superintendent Francis Hare Collection at the University of Melbourne Archives [Sharon Hollingsworth]

[UPDATED December 2, 2011: These letters and papers are now available online after a very long wait!]

Many times in the past few years I have brought up in articles and in forum posts about the letters and reports in the Francis Hare Collection at the University of Melbourne Archives. Currently, one has to go to the Uni to gain access to this collection which is described as:


"Correspondence (generally, inwards), notes and reports, mainly concerned with the surveillance and capture of the Kelly Gang."  

The collection has 54 items, with 19 of them concerning Capt. Standish; 12 of the 19 are letters to Hare, with the remaining 7 are between Standish and others (with one being extracts from his private letters with notations by Hare). There are letters from Hare to others and some of the names on letters to him are familiar ones: Ward, Sadleir, O'Connor, Nicolson, John Sherritt, Jack Sherritt, Robert Scott, Jacob Wilson, George Collins Levey and so forth.

Six of the letters had been published in the July 1981 edition of Overland Magazine. There was a bit of background on the letters in the article and a bit about their provenance which was echoed in an edition of the University of Melbourne Library Journal in 2000. In an article called "Ned Kelly and the University of Melbourne" which was written by the (then) archivist Michael Piggott and found at http://www.unimelb.edu.au/culturalcollections/research/libraryjournal/vol6no2/piggott.pdf  there was this bit:

The collection has its own mysteries. One is its provenance: the letters were found in a steel box in St Mark's Church Fitzroy in 1978 lacking any indication of how they came to be there...The other puzzle is the relatively little use the collection has attracted, particularly from scholarly writers.

I seem to recall that a couple of years ago the University was seeking a student volunteer to help transcribe and/or digitise and/or research the Hare collection (or something along those lines) in preparation for public consumption. I believe a young woman was selected for the job. All of that info is now off the net and I am relying on memory, of course. However, recently I found this at http://www.library.unimelb.edu.au/giving/2010_appeal talking about the coming digitisation of the letters in the Francis Hare collection:


"This collection is highly utilised and in demand by historians and researchers. Funds raised in the 2010 Annual Appeal will be used to digitise these unique and fragile letters, thus minimising general wear and tear. An online finding aid will be produced so that we can share these unique historical records with the world."

Amazing that in the last decade that the collection has become popular. I guess it just took getting the word out? Regarding the second part of the mystery about the provenance, while doing research for an article last year about Superintendent Hare I found that his wife's nephew was Rev. Evelyn Snodgrass (as a side note, Rev. Snodgrass's sister was Lady Janet Clarke). Rev. Snodgrass at one point was vicar of St. Mark's, Fitzroy.
Hare passed away in 1892 and his widow passed away in 1896, perhaps she left Hare's papers to her nephew, Rev. Snodgrass, as she and Hare had no children? And perhaps when he went on to his next assignment he had left the papers behind?

Note: I had previously written in an article called Ned was Forever in his Thoughts: Superintendent Francis Hare From Glenrowan to Rupertswood (1880-1892) at http://glenrowan1880.com/francis_hare.htm  that Rev. Snodgrass was Hare's brother-in-law,  but doing more in depth research later I found out differently! I must be in good company, as it is sort of how like how I have seen others in the past confuse Hare's wife named Janet with her niece of the same name as well as mixing up the Chomleys (confusing the uncle with the nephew) but it all gets sorted eventually and corrected, though. I had Dave White amend my article with the right info for future readers. It is so good to do stuff on the net as one can easily go in and do these type fixes! Woe unto them who have written books and only realise a fix or addition/deletion is needed long after it has been printed and distributed! Because then folks like me will find it and point it out! Hey, at least I sometimes find and point out my own, too, so it is all good...and the beat and the learning process goes on!