A 150-Year Journey Home:

A 150-Year Journey Home: Book No. 506 Returns to Kiama Library

In 1872, when the Kiama Library first opened its doors at the old School of Arts on the coastal shores of New South Wales, its shelves held a modest collection of around 1,000 volumes. Among them was Book No. 506—a copy of The Antiquities of Athens and Other Monuments of Greece, published in London in 1858.

Sometime between 1872 and the late 1880s, a borrower checked out the architectural survey, took it home, and never brought it back.

Fast forward nearly a century and a half later, and Book No. 506 has finally returned.

Hidden Behind the Bricks

The book’s dramatic resurfacing reads like something out of a mystery novel. Local resident Ross Simmons was renovating an old cottage on Manning Street in Kiama—a property that had once belonged to his great-great-grandfather, John Simmons, an English immigrant and local municipal alderman in the late 19th century.

During the demolition work, workers unsealed a bricked-up fireplace. Stashed inside a disused tea crate tucked deep within the chimney cavity was the long-lost volume. Despite carrying some water damage from decades spent hidden under a chimney, the 1858 edition—complete with its detailed architectural engravings and fold-out plates—remained remarkably intact.

Realizing what he had found, Simmons handed the book back to Kiama Library, stunning the staff.

A $28,000 Late Fee (and 19th-Century Rules)

Pasted inside the front cover of Book No. 506 is the library’s original set of regulations from 1872. The rules offer a fascinating window into colonial library culture:

• Overdue Fines: Borrowers were given one month to read a book before a late fee of three pence per week kicked in.

• Household Limits: A family could borrow up to three books at a time, provided at least six household members were "known to be able to read."

• Conduct Rules: Patrons arriving in a "state of intoxication" were strictly barred from borrowing.

Calculating the overdue fee using the original three-pence rate and adjusting for inflation over 150 years, the hypothetical fine stands at roughly $28,000 AUD (~$19,500 USD).

Unsurprisingly, the library has waived the fee.

The Unsolved Mystery

While Ross Simmons suspects his great-great-grandfather was the borrower who originally took the book home, the exact identity of the last reader remains lost to history. The library's loan ledgers from the 1870s disappeared long ago.

Library manager Michelle Hudson noted another rule printed on the cover: borrowers were forbidden from checking out new titles until all overdue books were returned and outstanding fines paid.

"Maybe that's why they never returned it to us in the first place," Hudson speculated. "Once the fine built up, it was easier to tuck it away."

Retired from Circulation

After 150 years in the dark, Book No. 506 will not be returning to the borrowing shelves. Instead, it is being preserved and placed on permanent display as a prized artifact in Kiama Library’s local history collection.

As Hudson put it with a smile: "We're not going to allow it to go back out again. We don't want to wait another 150 years for this book to be returned."