William Houison Deane

Photograph of William Houison Deane by unknown photographer. In the 1950s, Deane offered more than 5,000 books from his personal library to the University of Sydney, along with two endowed capital funds to ensure the growth and maintenance of the collection.

Deane wrote in a letter, “let us hope that in time it will help our Library to obtain some of those rarer items of the kind one finds only in those great old libraries of Europe.” Both funds were started with small sums which Deane added to over the years as his circumstances permitted, living very frugally and saving every dollar to add to the funds. He told then Vice-Chancellor, Sir Stephen Henry Roberts CMG, that his intention was “until my death to keep paying into this account everything I can”.

According to former University Librarian Dr Neil Radford, “Deane’s generosity to the Library is matched only by that of Thomas Fisher, for whom the Library is named. [Deane] was a modest man and sought no thanks or gratitude from the University, and that it was he who should thank the University and the Library for making it possible for him to derive such satisfaction from helping to build up its research collections.”

Though his initial gift is older than the current Fisher Library building, the two funds started by Mr Deane continue to expand the Library’s vast and unique collections, and to fund their ongoing care to this day.

Most photographs of W.H. Deane were destroyed when his home, Pilgrim Inn, was destroyed in 1969 in a bushfire.