Noted for his contribution to the promotion of Australian authors, the publisher A. C. Rowlandson spent his formative years in Queensland. Educated in Brisbane, he attended the Northcote State School and Superior Normal School before moving to Sydney in 1878. After finding employment as an office boy for an indent agent, Rowlandson joined the staff of Henry Lloyd's New South Wales Bookstall Company in 1883.
Established as 'a chain of railway and ferry bookstalls', Lloyd's company had been 'modelled on the British firm, W. H. Smith and Son'. Although Rowlandson initially began work selling tram tickets, he was eventually promoted, first to cashier and then manager. When Lloyd died in 1897, Rowlandson was in a position to purchase the company from the proprietor's widow. During the following decades he turned the Bookstall Company into the first mass-market paperback publishing venture in Australia. In 1904 he introduced the 'Bookstall Series' of paperback novels that were local in both origin and theme; continuing until 1928, this initiative has been regarded as his 'most important contribution' to the Bookstall Company as it represented a publishing programme that promoted a 'new market' for Australian authors.
Described as a 'busy man of unfailing courtesy', Rowlandson 'gave his time unstintingly to any ... would-be author. Known to his friends as 'Rowly',' he was 'well dressed', 'sociable' and noted for having 'convivial relations with his staff and competitors'. In addition to his activities as a publisher, Rowlandson has been attributed with writing under the pseudonym 'Paul Cupid'. Works published under this writing name include, a selection of humorous sketches The Rival Physicians (1909), as well as numerous poems and short stories that appeared in journals such as the Bulletin, Steele Rudd's Magazine and the Australian Town and Country Journal.
Following a 'physical breakdown' suffered early in 1922, Rowlandson undertook a sea voyage to North America for the sake of his health. However, illness prevented him from landing when the ship arrived in San Francisco and on the return journey to Australia he had to be hospitalised in Wellington, New Zealand. He subsequently died of 'diabetic complications after an operation for appendicitis'.
(Source: Carol Mills, 'Rowlandson, Alfred Cecil (1865 - 1922)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 11, Melbourne University Press, 1988.)
