Sir Peter Crisp Collection

Key items in the collection

The Sir Peter Crisp Collection comprises 696 books and pamphlets relating to freshwater fishing. The majority are British. There are also about 130 Australian works and a number published in New Zealand and America. Most date from the 20th century with others being 19th-century imprints.

Examples of some of the early works in the collection are:

John Baddeley, The London angler’s book or Waltonian chronicle (London, 1834)
Charles Badham, Prose halieutics or ancient and modern fish tattle (London, 1854)
George Bainbridge, The fly fisher’s guide (London, 1840)
Thomas Best, A concise treatise on the art of angling (London, 1804)
John J Brown, The American angler’s guide (New York, 1876)
Edward Chitty, The fly fisher’s text book (London, 1841)
Humphry Davy, Salmonia: or days of fly fishing (London, 1829)
TC Hofland, The British angler’s manual (London, 1839)
Thomas Medwin, The angler in Wales, or days and nights of sportsmen (London, 1834)
Stephen Oliver, Scenes and recollections of fly fishing in Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmoreland (London, 1834)
Henry Phillips, The true enjoyment of angling (London, 1843)
TF Salter, The angler’s guide (London, 1825)
JE Tenison-Woods, Fish and fisheries of New South Wales (Sydney, 1882)
Izaak Walton, The complete angler or the contemplative man’s recreation (London, 1860)
Samuel Wilson, The Californian salmon, with an account of its introduction into Victoria (Melbourne, 1878).

Other authors represented in the collection include:

Robert Blakey
Frank Buckland
F Cholmondeley-Pennell
Viscount Grey of Falloden
Stephen Gwynn
John Waller Hills
Vic McCristal
Arthur Ransome
William Senior
HT Sheringham
Thomas Tod Stoddart
Eric Taverner
Harvey Turing
Lawrence Wackett.

About Peter Crisp

Sir (Malcolm) Peter Crisp (1912–1984) was born in Burnie, Tasmania and educated at Burnie Convent School, Riverview College (Sydney) and the University of Tasmania.

Career and achievements

Crisp was called to the Bar in 1933.

In 1935, he was appointed Deputy Registrar of the Supreme Court of Tasmania and he subsequently held other official posts, including Crown Prosecutor, Crown Solicitor and Solicitor-General. He was appointed a King's Counsel in 1951 and became a judge of the Supreme Court of Tasmania in 1952.

Crisp was knighted in 1969 and retired in 1971.

Interest in libraries

Crisp had a strong interest in libraries. He was President of the Library Board of Tasmania from 1956 to 1977. He was a foundation member of the National Library Council and Chairman in 1971. He was also:

President of the Library Association of Australia between 1963 and 1966
Chairman of the Australian Council of Bibliographical Services between 1973 and 1983.

In a paper entitled The vicarious angler, Crisp wrote:

My principal recreation has been to fish for trout and, for one brief period, salmon … Over the years [I] have sought, vicariously, to assuage my perpetual disappointments by recourse to the literature of angling, rather fitfully and intermittently, perhaps, but with an ever-increasing interest, instruction and sometimes amusement.

Sir Peter Crisp

He described his collection of fishing books as a working collection, not a rare book collection. For instance, he did not hold any early editions of Izaak Walton's The complete angler.

He hoped that, in the Library, his collection would complement the Charles Collection, which was smaller but contains a number of books published in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Background to the collection

Crisp bequeathed his collection of fishing books to the Library. It was received in 1985.

The Sir Peter Crisp Collection has been kept together as a collection. The books have been catalogued individually and the call numbers have the prefix 'MPC'.

This guide was prepared using these references:

WL Brown, Obituary of Sir Peter Crisp, Australian Academic and Research Libraries, vol 15 (1), March 1984, pp 46–7
HA Finlay, Crisp, Sir Malcolm Peter (1912–1984), Australian Dictionary of Biography Online
Obituary of Sir Peter Crisp, The Mercury, 15 February 1984, p 2.