Australian Encyclopaedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Australian Encyclopedia is a encyclopedia focussed on Australia and its history. It was first published by Angus and Robertson in two volumes in 1925.

The Encyclopedia was initiated in 1912 as a historical and biographical record under the directorship of Charles H. Bertie, municipal librarian of Sydney, and a lot of material had been collected when the outbreak of World War I in 1914 temporarily halted its progress.

In 1917 work resumed and it was decided that the book should also include scientific subjects. Herbert J. Carter, then President of the Linnean Society of New South Wales who recruited other Australian scientists to work on the encyclopedia. Their contributions were, in many instances, the first summaries of scientific knowledge published in a general reference work in Australia. In 1920 Captain Arthur Jose from the Australian Navy became the general editor, he found that due to the time elapsed since the project started and due to the availability of new sources that it had become necessary to re-write much historical and biographical information.