JAPAN THROUGH WESTERN EYES

Manuscript Records of Traders, Travellers, Missionaries and Diplomats

Parts 7 and 8: The Harold S. Williams Collection from the National Library of Australia - the Green subject files (Series 1, Folders 1-138) and Additional subject files (Series 2, Folders 1-82)

Related Holdings

In addition to the papers and manuscripts held in the Manuscript Section, the Asian Studies Section of the National Library holds the Harold S Williams Collection of monographs and a number of pictorial works.

The Harold S Williams Collection of monographs contains over 3,000 volumes; its particular strength is the history of foreigners and foreign settlements in Japan. It includes directories, travel books and works on Japanese foreign relations, foreign business houses, missions, foreign clubs and societies, customs, fine arts, festivals, natural disasters, the army, politics, economic conditions, local history, laws, education and many other themes. It also contains books on other parts of East Asia, including China, Hong Kong and Korea. In most cases in which Williams included both monographs and manuscripts in the same folders the monographs have been removed. Such items have then been added to the monograph collection.

The Williams Collection also contains 16 framed etchings by the Japanese artist Hiroshi Kambara, an album of his original sketches and watercolours and a published collection of his works. Kambara’s pictures are of both artistic and historical interest and thus complement the books and manuscripts of the Williams Collection.

THE MICROFILM PROJECT

The microfilm project will cover Series 1 and Series 2 of the collection. These will be published as Parts 7 and 8 of the “Japan Through Western Eyes” microfilm series.

Series 1: The Green subject files (Folders 1-138)

This series comprises the research files compiled by Harold Williams from 1949 to 1987, which he called ‘the green files’. They contain his research and writings on the foreign settlements of nineteenth-century Japan, the history of foreign communities and their influence on, and adaptation to, Japanese culture and society. The files include correspondence, notes, references, press cuttings of his own articles and articles by other writers, copies of typescripts of Williams’ published articles, photographs and other miscellaneous material assembled in the course of his research. These files are arranged alphabetically by the subject names given to them by Harold Williams.

Series 2: The Additional subject files (folders 1-82)

This series contains additional subject files, most of which were originally in spring-back folders with a few in scrapbook form. Like Series 1, the files include copies of typescripts of Williams’ published articles, correspondence, notes, references, press cuttings of his own and other people’s articles, photographs and other miscellaneous material assembled in the course of his research from 1949 to 1987. These files are arranged alphabetically by the names given to them by Harold Williams.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank Graeme Powell, Lydia Preiss, Maxine Davis and their colleagues at the National Library of Australia for their help with this microfilm project. I am also grateful for permission to use information and listings taken from the Guide to the Papers of Harold S Williams in the National Library of Australia, compiled by Corinne Collins, (National Library of Australia 2000) and the article on Westerners in Japan: the Harold S Williams Collection, the revised and updated version by Andrew Gosling, first published in National Library of Australia News, III (4), January 1993, pp11-13, in this microfilm project.

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