Aust. manuscripts to be auctioned

Press, 8 March 1982, Page 5

Aust. manuscripts to be auctioned

NZPA London The London auctioneers, Sotheby’s, are having a twoday Australiana sale in April, selling valuable printed books and manuscripts illustrating the early history of Australia and New Zealand. One set of correspondence, relating to the Bunbury family of Williamstown, Melbourne, provides a particularly close look into colonial Australia in the 1840 s. The Bunburys’ lives were evidently a constant struggle against impending financial ruin, the hazards of farming, and the safeguarding of land. They also wrote to their relatives in England about an ineffective government, a harsh and unhealthy climate, an unstable economy, and

weak law-and-order enforcement. It was a struggle which led to Sally Bunbury’s leaving her husband and returning to England with her two children, and later to her husband’s early death in 1858. There are several hundred letters involved in this sale. Other manuscripts for auction include a certificateof wages signed by Captain Cook; journals of two expeditions in north-west and Western Australia by Sir George Grey, who later became Governor of South Australia and Governor of New Zealand; and a narrative by Captain William Bligh of the mutiny on the Bounty. The auction will be held on April 6 and 7.