Three door glazed bookcase : C E W Bean

Glazed, three door book case with moulded and beaded top. Each door has a brass lock (keys missing). The doors are divided into four glass panels, each separated by wooden beading. The proper left side, the width of one door, contains four short book shelves secured by round wooden pegs set into holes drilled in the sides. Three of these shelves bear paper labels in C E W Bean's handwriting: 'School magazines & things connected with Brentwood School'; 'Some of E. Bean's sermons & papers on divers subjects. Old Bibles of his family'; and 'E.Bean's prizes which he greatly prized. Never to be sold.' This last label is written on one of the Reverend Bean's visiting cards. Three long bookshelves, also secured by round wood pegs, are set behind the proper right and centre doors of the case.

The bookcase sits on a wooden cupboard base, to which it is attached by screws. The base has a slightly flared top and bottom, with plain moulding. A four groove decorative moulding with a curved top section is set on each side of the front to give the impression of columns. Three doors in the front correspond with the doors of the bookcase above. Each has a slightly recessed rectangular panel, edged with wooden beading and a brass lock (keys missing). The side doors are hinged; the central door slides along grooves set into the top and bottom, when the side doors are open. The books or other contents of the cupboard rest on the base and three adjustable shelves secured by round wood pegs set into holes drilled into the sides of the cupboard. One shelf has a further two of the Reverend Bean's visiting cards attached. One is marked in C E W Bean's handwriting 'E. Bean's Prizes chiefly', and the other 'Some old editions of well known books - should be valuable'.

This bookcase was collected from Charles Bean's study at his home 'Clifton' in Collaroy, NSW. Bean is perhaps best remembered for the official histories of Australia in the First World War, of which he wrote six volumes and edited the remainder. Before this, however, he was Australia's official correspondent to the war. He was also the driving force behind the establishment of the Australian War Memorial.

Charles Edwin Woodrow Bean was born on 18 November 1879 at Bathurst, New South Wales. His family moved to England when he was ten. He completed his education there, eventually studying classics and law at Oxford. Bean returned to Australia in 1904 and was admitted to the New South Wales Bar.

Having dabbled in journalism, Bean joined the Sydney Morning Herald as a junior reporter in January 1908. He published several books before being posted to London in 1910. In 1913 he returned to Sydney as the Herald's leader writer. When the First World War began, Bean won an Australian Journalists Association ballot and became official correspondent to the AIF. He accompanied the first convoy to Egypt, landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 and began to make his name as a tireless, thorough and brave correspondent. He was wounded in August but remained on Gallipoli for most of the campaign, leaving just a few days before the last troops.

He then reported on the Australians on the Western Front where his admiration of the AIF crystallised into a desire to create a permanent memorial to their sacrifice and achievements. In addition to his journalism, Bean filled hundreds of diaries and notebooks, all with a view to writing a history of the AIF when the war ended. In addition he organised the collection of battlefield relics from AIF soldiers on the Western Front through the formation of the Australian War Records Section. In early 1919 he led a historical mission to Gallipoli to collect relics for the Memorial, obtain Turkish accounts of the campaign and report on the condition of war graves.

On his return to Australia Bean and his staff moved into Tuggeranong homestead, south of Canberra, to work on the official history. In 1921 he married Ethel (Effie) Young, a nursing sister at the Queanbeyan hospital whom he first met when she visited Tuggeranong to play tennis. They later moved to Sydney, where he continued to write at Victoria Barracks. When he began, Bean imagined that the history would take five years to write; in the event it took 23 years, and the final volume did not appear until 1942.

Besides his written work, Bean worked tirelessly on creating the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. He was present when the building opened on 11 November 1941 and became Chairman of the Memorial's board in 1952. He maintained a close association with the institution for the rest of his life.

During the Second World War, Bean liaised between the Chiefs of Staff and the press for the Department of Information. He became Chairman of the Commonwealth Archives Committee and was instrumental in creating the Commonwealth Archives. Between 1947 and 1958 he was Chairman of the Promotion Appeals Board of the Australian Broadcasting Commission. He also continued to write, producing a history of Australia's independent schools and finally a book on two senior AIF figures, 'Two men I knew'. Bean received a number of honorary degrees and declined a knighthood. Bean, one of the most admired Australians of his generation, died after a long illness in Concord Repatriation Hospital in 1968.