Author: RHSV Marketing

Welcome Claudia Donovan, the newest member of the RHSV team! She will be joining us mid-May to start her new role as images collection officer. We have a huge amount of material catalogue and preserve, so we welcome the extra hands to help us with it.

Claudia holds a Master of Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies with a specialisation in Curatorship and Collections, alongside a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in History, Sociology, and Anthropology.

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Congratulations to everyone who took part in the 2024 Victorian Community History Awards!

We extend our heartfelt thanks for your invaluable contributions to our collective understanding of Victorian history. We know that the amount of work that goes into the creation of submissions like these. Your efforts ensure that the stories of the past continue to inspire and educate future generations.

Click here to see the full website for all the details of the winners,

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Heritage groups, community groups and individuals across Melbourne are condemning the City of Melbourne’s new plan to surround the Queen Victoria Market with three 25 – 40 storey towers. The $1.7 billion proposal, known as Gurrowa Place and announced in late June, also includes plans for a city square to be built on the market’s current southern car park.

Since the announcement, Charles Sowerwine, Chair of the RHSV Heritage Committee, has been a prominent voice in the media, 

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Tuesday 13 June 2023

Dear RHSV members,

I am sure you are as concerned and disappointed as I, and the RHSV Council, are by the recent decision in the 2023 state budget not to fund community history – both PROV’s Local History Grants Program and the Victorian Community History Awards.

History in this state and indeed across the country now receives very little support from government.  History is currently not part of government thinking at all levels on funding for the Arts or cultural policy.

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The Royal Historical Society of Victoria acknowledges that Friday 26 May is National Sorry Day in recognition of the Stolen Generations in our history. We acknowledge the trauma experienced by Indigenous families across Australia, caused by the invidious policy in all jurisdictions for generations of removing Indigenous children from their families in the wrong and vain hope of separating them from their cultures. In some circumstances this continues making the need change and reconciliation even greater.

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The famous Robur Tea House on Clarendon Street, Southbank faces another attempt to reduce its heritage value and architectural significance. A proposal has been submitted to redevelop the site, including the partial demolition of the Tea House and construction of office, retail and residential buildings, including a 25 story apartment and hotel complex.

The proposed Tea House Hotel will be more than 100 metres tall and will dwarf the six storey original building.

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16 March, is National Closing the Gap Day. Ever since the Apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008 governments have pledged to Close the Gap on a set of agreed socio-economic indices concerning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage. For ten years progress was slow, which was to be expected given the gap to be bridged, the slow movement of change over each year, and also that First Nations peoples were not fully consulted on the programs.

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The Number 2 Goods Shed in Docklands, near Southern Cross Station is one of the most significant buildings in Victoria’s rail and industrial history. Built in 1889, it is the largest and most architecturally elaborate nineteenth century railway goods building in Victoria. Despite its listing on the Victorian Heritage Register, in the early 2000s it was cut in half when Collins Street was extended into Docklands, and the two halves redeveloped as office spaces. In 2022 a developer applied to Heritage Victoria for a permit to demolish more of the shed in order to build two substantial office towers where the sheds are cut by the Collins Street extension.

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The RHSV supports International Human Rights Day Saturday 10 December 2022, whose theme is ‘dignity, freedom  and justice for all’.

The RHSV through its collections and publications is endeavouring to fulfill the role of History as a truth seeking and telling discipline. We are decolonising our catalogue to take account of First Nations History and have a dedicated distinguished lecture for Indigenous History, which is then published in our journal. Our current exhibition is about the women of the RHSV who have made such a significant contribution to our organisation and the wider society.

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The RHSV has launched a campaign for the Victorian state election, aiming to get candidates to commit to restarting the upper house Inquiry into Planning and Heritage begun last year but terminated without hearings this year. Charles Sowerwine, Chair of the RHSV Heritage Committee, has written to every candidate for the Legislative Council asking them to commit to supporting the Inquiry. We are asking everyone, RHSV members, local historical societies, everyone committed to the preservation of our wonderful heritage,

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The next stage in the seemingly endless attempt to rob the Queen Victoria Market of its character and role as a traditional fresh food market has surfaced. Following the approval of a 21 storey building at 432-450 Queen Street, the City of Melbourne has applied to Heritage Victoria to use half the historic 1878 fruit and vegetable sheds (A-E) for hospitality, loading docks and a fenced-off area
for storage. Further, the application requests the addition of modified shipping containers or ‘pods’ 2.4m wide by 2.6m high and either 3m or 6m long ‘painted monochromatically in one of three colours: cream,

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The RHSV joins the Chinese Community of Ballarat, local historical societies and the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) in calling urgently for the Ballarat Council to reverse the decision to demolish a historic cottage that played a central role in the town’s history. This 1906 classic Edwardian cottage was home to the family of Chinese goldmine manager James Wong Chung continuously until 2008. It played a role in Chinese life and stands as a witness to the participation of Chinese Australians in the Goldfields.

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The RHSV is currently awaiting the publication of the final planning application for the development of the Royal Standard Hotel. As we so far know, it involves “partial demolition” in order to construct residential apartments and “a ground level restaurant”. We are very much concerned for the future of this iconic 1865 hotel, remarkably intact and still functioning. The City of Melbourne has a shocking record in allowing the demolition of historic hotels, most recently in granting a permit to demolish the 1864 Great Western Hotel,

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The threat of redevelopment of the historic John Curtin Hotel in Carlton has eased after Heritage Victoria announced on 25 July that the Curtin has been recommended for inclusion on the Victorian Heritage Register due to its ‘state level significance’.

Concern about the future of the John Curtin Hotel arose when it was announced in February that the hotel was up for sale and that its lease would not be renewed when it expires in November.

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