Find of the Month

January 2026

Summer reading, Canberra style:

Records on the city's early bookshops

For many, catching up on reading is a highlight of the summer months. You might have recently browsed the shelves at your local Libraries ACT branch, or visited a bricks-and-mortar bookshop in search of the perfect gift.

One of the groups of records added to our ACT Memory database last year was the Firms and Business Names Registration files (ACT58), also known as the Deregistered Business files. The records begin in 1934, and in many of the earlier records the business had already been operating for several years before they were officially registered.

To highlight this series, and in keeping with the summer reading theme, we’ve reviewed three of the files for Canberra bookshops, established in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1950s respectively.

The files themselves are generally brief and business-like, befitting their administrative purpose, but come alive when read alongside other resources such as:

• Digitised newspapers on Trove, especially The Canberra Times
• Other ArchivesACT resources such as Territory Lease files
• Personal, family or organisational archival collections held by other institutions including the ACT Heritage Library and the National Library of Australia
• Records held by the National Archives of Australia (including ASIO files for a high proportion of booksellers, if this sample is representative).

While we call them bookshops, many early businesses operated primarily as subscription-based lending libraries. In the absence of public libraries, readers would pay, usually on a quarterly basis, for the right to borrow books and magazines from a private business.

Manuka’s first bookshop: The Fraser sisters’ Canberra Book Club

The first business officially registered in Canberra was The Rotary Refreshment Rooms, located in Kingston. The second was, in fact, a bookshop - the Canberra Book Club, located in Manuka. The business was registered by Florence Mary Elizabeth Jones in August 1933. A year later, Miss Jones sold it to J. Cassidy, who incorporated it into the Capitol Newsagency.

Fig. 1. Business registration documents for the Canberra Book Club (A921-F2)

Newspaper articles show that the business was originally established in early 1927 by Miss Eila and Miss Peggy Fraser. A Sydney Sun profile that year, “Pluck! Girl Pioneers of Canberra”, lauded the intrepid spirit of the sisters and the largely female cohort of retailers in Manuka, dubbing it a “suburb of Amazons”.[i] One impressive fact reported about the sisters was that they each read 28 novels a week in order to maintain knowledge of their offerings. One can only imagine the vibrancy of the store, with orange walls and bright blue woodwork, or the vision of the sisters driving around in Canberra with crates of books and two dogs (in driving goggles), in their red Humber 9.

Fig. 2. Eila Fraser, 1979

Despite their energy and creativity, the bookshop was not a commercial success – “we were too early”, and the sisters moved on to other pursuits. For Eila, this included club championship golfing, theatre set design, work in the Patents Office, and golf journalism.[ii]

Verity Hewitt: The bookshop that became a Canberra icon

Fig. 3. Verity Hewitt, 1947

Verity Hewitt’s is probably the best-known historical Canberra bookshop. Indeed, many have assumed it to be the first Canberra bookshop – something that Verity refuted, crediting her predecessors like the Fraser sisters.[iii]

The business registration file for Verity Hewitt shows that Verity Hope Fitzhardinge registered the business on 22 March 1938, intending to open in the Sydney Building on East Row on 1 April 1938. The many newspaper reports about Verity and her string of bookshops over the following decades accord with this information and add colour and context, for example, her admission that she entered the book trade because she found domestic married life unbearably boring.[iv] These accounts also acknowledge Verity’s sister June Lombard as a key partner in running the businesses.

Fig. 4. Business registration documents for Verity Hewitt (A921-F100)

Together with her husband, the librarian and historian Laurie Fitzhardinge, Verity is an important figure in the cultural history of Canberra and Queanbeyan. Her life also reflects broader national themes of the twentieth century. In a 1979 interview, Verity recalled serving a Japanese diplomat during the Second World War. Under police guard, he was stocking up on reading material before being taken to Melbourne for internment. The Fitzhardinges themselves also came under suspicion due to Verity’s interests in Russian language and culture; their activities were meticulously recorded by ASIO.[v]

In recognition of her importance and association with the area, the Sydney Building’s service lane was renamed after Verity Hewitt (Fitzhardinge) in 2006.[vi]

Bookselling and foreign affairs: The Green Square Book & Record Shop

The eminent public servant, diplomat and academic John Wear Burton established the Green Square Book & Record Shop in March 1957.

Fig. 5. Business registration documents for Morgan’s Book Shop, later the Green Square Book and Record Shop (A921-F1031)

The business registration file shows that the shop was first registered by Dr Burton together with Alexander William Sheppard of Sydney, as the Canberra Branch of Morgan’s Book Shop & Record Lounge. Continuing the theme of security agency surveillance, Alex Sheppard, like Burton himself, was the subject of numerous files. In fact, John Burton and Verity Hewitt appear in some of the same ASIO records, such as the photograph at Fig. 6, taken at an event associated with a visit to Canberra by Chinese and USSR trade union delegations in May 1956.

Fig. 6. ASIO photograph showing John Wear Burton (1) and Hope Verity Fitzhardinge (3), 1956

Burton is perhaps best known as a close colleague of H. V. (Doc) Evatt, and The Canberra Times for 23 March 1957 includes a photograph of Mrs H. V. (Mary) Evatt, opening the bookshop as Morgan’s. A month later, the business name was officially changed to Green Square Book & Record Shop, and Sheppard was removed as a member of the business.

It seems that Burton was not heavily involved in the day-to-day running of the store, with Mrs S. Lewis referred to as the manageress. Burton does appear in The Canberra Times as the host of a cocktail party at the shop in February 1960 to launch Manning Clark’s book Meeting Soviet Man.[vii]

The shop was taken over by Angus and Robertson in June 1962.[viii] While The Canberra Times reported that they would continue to operate under the same name, the Green Square Book & Record Shop was officially deregistered as a business name on 22 June 1962. By this time Burton had moved further into his academic career, as the recipient of a Rockefeller grant to study African neutralism in 1962 and as reader of international relations at University College London in 1963.[ix] Angus and Robertson traded at the Kingston site until 1971.

Conclusion

These three files demonstrate how even brief administrative records can illuminate Canberra’s cultural and economic development. When combined with newspapers and other published and unpublished sources, they help trace the evolution of bookselling in the capital, from subscription libraries to chain stores, all shaped by lively and interesting characters behind the scenes. This is one example of how the Firms and Business Names Registration files can offer insights into the businesses that contributed to Canberra’s growth.

The series can be explored on ACT Memory, and can be scanned on request, or viewed in the ArchivesACT Reading Room in Mitchell by prior arrangement.

Ready to start your own research? Make an enquiry and we will be happy to help.

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ACT Government files used

Series: Registration file, single number series with ‘F’ prefix (Firms, Business Names) (ACT58), 1934–

Images

Fig. 1. Business registration documents for the Canberra Book Club (A921-F2)

Fig. 2. Eila Fraser, 1979. Published in A pioneer makes a pilgrimage (1979, June 20). The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), p. 24. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article110952875

Fig. 3. Verity Hewitt, 1947. Published in VERITY HEWITT: Bookselling in early Canberra (1979, February 17). The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), p. 15. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article136980740

Fig. 4. Business registration documents for Verity Hewitt (A921-F100)

Fig. 5. Registration documents for Morgan’s Book Shop, later the Green Square Book and Record Shop (A921-F1031)

Fig. 6. ASIO photograph showing John Wear Burton (1) and Hope Verity Fitzhardinge (3), 1956. National Archives of Australia A9626, 762.

References