A Generous Gift: The John and Phyllis Murphy Collection

Our current library display features an array of colourful and evocative historical wallpapers from the John and Phyllis Murphy Collection. The collection was compiled by architects Phyllis Murphy (nee Slater, 1924) and her husband, John Murphy (1920–2004), and comprises thousands of rolls and lengths of historical wallpapers as well as sample books, trade literature and related materials dating from around 1850 to 1980.

The Murphys’ collection began in 1978 when they purchased ‘a shed full of old wallpapers destined for the tip’, previously the stock of O J Price, a painter and decorator in the Victorian town of Kyneton. Phyllis began to research historical wallpapers, and by the mid-1980s she was a sought-after expert on the subject. Over the years, hundreds more items were donated by architectural colleagues, former workers in the wallpaper industry, and home owners who found scraps of wallpaper during renovations, and the Murphys’ collection became the largest of its kind in Australia.

In late 2022, Phyllis donated the collection to Museums of History NSW, and it is now being shared with the public in our display A Generous Gift: The John and Phyllis Murphy Collection.