Sybil Nolan: ‘His Whole Prospects were Formed Out of Study’ Discovery in the Menzies Collection

Heather Menzies, Robert Menzies, Pattie Menzies, Jawaharlal Nehru and group on the steps of the Indian Prime Minister's house during Menzies' visit to India, December 1950, Menzies Collection

In 1976 Sir Robert Menzies bequeathed his library and archive of approximately 4000 items to the University of Melbourne. The collection is a unique historical and cultural artefact, showcasing the breadth of Menzies’s intellectual influences and acting as a sociological time capsule of 20th century Australia. For historians, the collection is a treasure trove of unique items, each having the potential to unlock fascinating secrets about their previous owner.

Sybil Nolan is our guest this week and is one such historian who has had the opportunity to spend some time with the collection, first while researching her PhD in 2005 and later in 2013 as part of a grant. During the latter exploration she chanced across Menzies’s copy of The Discovery of India, gifted to him by the author Jawaharlal Nehru on a visit to New Delhi in December of 1950, an item which inspired her to write an entire book chapter. Its pages; some read, some noticeably untouched, evoke Menzies’s own struggle to come to grips with a post-colonial world in which the Empire he was raised to feel a part of was no more.

Sybil Nolan is a Senior Lecturer in publishing and communications at the University of Melbourne, and Publisher at Grattan Street Press, the University's teaching press. She researches in publishing, print culture and Australian political and media history. Sybil worked in book publishing for more than 10 years, including as commissioning editor at Melbourne University Publishing from 2003 to 2007, and before that spent 15 years working in daily journalism on newspapers including the Age.