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Information/Autograph request

Picture postcard sent by Bray to The Curator and Chief Librarian, Art Gallery & Library, Auckland, New Zealand on 2nd January 1907 asking for his autograph and some information to be supplied.

Signed by Edward Shillington.

Edward Shillington was born in Belfast, Ireland, and baptised there on 15 March 1835. He was the son of Margaret Little and her husband, Edward Shillington, a labourer. Little is known of his early life, but he spent 21 years with the Royal Engineers. On 19 January 1856 he married Fanny Gallagher in Belfast. After her death he married a widow, Clara Gillespie (née Corney), at Alverstoke, Hampshire, England, on 6 February 1865.

After a period of military service in China, Shillington arrived in New Zealand in mid 1880 with his wife. The Auckland Free Public Library was due to open on 7 September in that year in the former entertainment hall of the Auckland Mechanics' Institute, whose own library had provided reading and reference facilities for the city since 1842. Shillington applied for the advertised position of first librarian. Of the 42 applicants for the post, few, so far as was known, had mixed much with books. The decision was finally made to appoint 'a married man' for no better reason,

Source: https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2s22/shillington-edward

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki is the principal public gallery in Auckland, New Zealand, and has the most extensive collection of national and international art in New Zealand. It frequently hosts travelling international exhibitions.

Set below the hilltop Albert Park in the central-city area of Auckland, the gallery was established in 1888 as the first permanent art gallery in New Zealand.

The building originally housed the Auckland Art Gallery as well as the Auckland public library opening with collections donated by benefactors Governor Sir George Grey and James Tannock Mackelvie. This was the second public art gallery in New Zealand opened three years after the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in 1884. Wellington's New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts opened in 1892 and a Wellington Public Library in 1893.

Curios and Autographs
Autograph Postcard Types
Where he lived
Some photographs
Scrapbook
Cigarette Cards
Cartoon by Michael Leigh