Alfred Cecil Rowlandson

Early life

Rowlandson was born at Daylesford, Victoria, the second surviving son of Arthur Hodgson Rowlandson, an Indian-born goldminer, and his wife Susan Sophia (née Black), born in Brechin, Scotland. A. C. Rowlandson was educated at Northcote State School and then the Superior Normal School, Brisbane after the family moved to Queensland. In 1877 he began working as a shop boy. In 1878 another move was made to Sydney, where Rowlandson was employed as an office boy with an indent agent.

Career

In 1883, at 17, Rowlandson joined the staff of the New South Wales Bookstall Company, and was employed as a tram ticket seller at the office at the corner of King Street and Elizabeth Streets. He was promoted to cashier and then manager. When the proprietor Henry Lloyd died in 1897, Rowlandson bought the business from the widow and conceived the idea of selling Australian books at one shilling each. In spite of his belief that there was a market for cheap Australian books the prospects were not encouraging. Australians generally had not much faith in the value of the work of their novelists, and it seemed unlikely that books could be sold in large editions in a country with a population still under 4,000,000 when Rowlandson began publishing at the turn of the century. An early transaction was the unprecedented fee of £500 for the copyright of Sandy's Selection by Steele Rudd, which meant that about 20,000 copies had to be sold before a penny of profit could come in. The book broke even and Rowlandson also spent comparatively large sums in readers' fees, and among the many distinguished artists employed as illustrators were Norman Lindsay, Lionel Lindsay, Percy Lindsay, Ruby Lindsay, David Low, Percy Spence and Will Dyson. He published works by A H Adams, J A Barry, Louis Becke, Randolph Bedford, E J Brady, George Cockerill, Edward Dyson, Beatrice Grimshaw, Sumner Locke, Vance Palmer, Ambrose Pratt, T E Spencer and A G Stephens among others. Postcards included paintings by Neville Cayley. He may have been the author (as 'Paul Cupid') of a 1909 novel The Rival Physicians. As a result of increased costs during World War I the copy price of the books was increased to one shilling and threepence, but it was lowered to one shilling again as soon as possible.

Late life and legacy

Rowlandson, who had to work extremely hard to keep control of a business worked on a small margin of profit, became ill early in 1922, and taking a voyage to North America for the sake of his health was unable to land when he arrived at San Francisco, California. On his way back to Australia he was taken to a private hospital at Wellington, New Zealand, and died following diabetic complications after an operation for appendicitis on 15 June 1922. He was buried in Gore Hill cemetery, Sydney, leaving a widow, son, daughter and an adopted daughter.

In just over 20 years of publishing Rowlandson issued around 5,000,000 copies of books by about 70 authors, illustrated by over 30 artists, and left a name for just dealing not surpassed by any other publisher.