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.
read more...The RHSV congratulates the Minister for Planning, the Honourable Lizzie Blandthorn, MP, on her decision to extend the protected area (the World Heritage Environs Area or WHEA) around the Royal Exhibition Building & Carlton Gardens World Heritage Site. This represents a major step forward in our campaign to implement better protection of Melbourne’s only World Heritage Site.
In 2004, when Australia sought World Heritage listing for the Exhibition Building site, it promised a buffer zone around the Carlton Gardens,
read more...Cheryl Griffin’s latest article in CBD News has just hit the streets. Cheryl takes us on a journey inspired by a photograph from the 1930s of a very modest, rather sad, little house found in Franklin Street. The land was first bought by John O’Shanassy, later Sir John, Premier of Victoria.
“For some time, this house was reputed to have been the home of Melbourne’s first mayor, Henry Condell, a theory dispelled around the time the photograph was taken,
read more...28 June 2022. In response to the City of Melbourne’s latest undermining of the cultural heritage of the Queen Victoria Market, Charles Sowerwine, Chair of the RHSV Heritage Committee, released the following statement.
“The CEO of the Queen Victoria Market, Stan Liacos, has been on a propaganda offensive, presenting a warm fuzzy on change at the Queen Victoria Market. As CEO, Stan has driven the process of change currently engulfing the market, change based on the proposals Robert Doyle made nine years ago,
read more...A impassioned call for heritage action from Professor Charles Sowerwine, chair of the RHSV Heritage Committee in the lead up to the Victorian election.
“For nearly a decade, your RHSV Heritage Committee has been participating in the planning process to protect heritage. But heritage is losing out. It’s time to put heritage on the political agenda. As members of local historical societies, let’s demand that candidates and elected representatives address the structural issues in the planning system that cause increasing loss of heritage.”
read more...THREAT TO ABC LIBRARIANS AND ARCHIVES
Richard Broome’s response, 16 June 2022
An article in the Conversation recently outlined that the ABC is planning to axe librarians. President of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, Richard Broome has written a response to the Chair of the ABC Ita Buttrose, outlining his concern for the redundancies and realignments of staff connected with the ABC’s archive/library and on-going record keeping.
As the article in The Conversation states: “When information professionals do their jobs well,
read more...Every month Cheryl Griffin and Ashley Smith write fabulous history articles for CBD News and Docklands News respectively. The articles are based on photographs from the RHSV collection.
This month Cheryl is inspired by a photograph from about 1865 of students in front of the Model School, Spring Street. You can read the full story here: The three “Rs”: school’s in at the Old Model School, Spring St
Ashley’s article is inspired by a photo of the presentation at the ‘launch of a new train that would become a feature of the railways for the next half-century,
read more...The Royal Historical Society of Victoria is much saddened at the death of long-serving member, His Honour Paul Mullaly QC. Paul contributed substantially to the RHSV over many years and in many ways however his greatest contribution has been his transcription and annotation of Judge Willis’ Port Phillip Casebooks, for which legal scholars will always be in his debt.
Paul’s work can be found on a mini-website within the RHSV website here: The Judge Willis Casebooks
The RHSV extends sympathy to Paul’s family.
read more...Inspired by a sketch of Batman’s Hill which was the western boundary of Melbourne during the 1830s, Ashley Smith has done a deep dive into the dubious history of duels fought on the hill. The hill was eventually levelled in the 1860s to make way for extensions to the Spencer Street Railway Station but its infamy lives on in the stories of duels when gentlemen put their lives on the line to defend their honour or the honour of a woman.
read more...Cheryl Griffin’s latest article in CBD News has just been published – all about of a little ramshackle house that could have been found in Spring Street for over 50 after it was built in 1840.
When Godfrey Howitt, his brother Richard and other members of their family, decided to settle in Port Phillip in April 1840, Godfrey and Richard brought a home and that is what you see here.
His prefabricated wooden cottage fronted Spring St in the south-east corner of the CBD and his land,
read more...The wealth and extravagance of the 1880s, the era of Marvellous Melbourne, was long gone when this photograph was taken, but it is still evident in the two main buildings you see here – the Grand Hotel on the left and the Princess Theatre on the right.
The ornate Princess Theatre that dominates this streetscape gives no sense of the terrible fate that overtook Victorian society in the 1890s. The collapse of the banks and the suffering that followed overwhelmed almost every aspect of life.
read more...Imagine you’re an eager tourist arriving at Spencer Street Station in the late 1920s or early 1930s.
With your back to the acrid coal smoke and much-needed sea breeze of the docks, you take one of the numerous passageways to the front entrance of the station and there, across the street at the corner of Spencer and Little Collins, you find the Hotel Alexander, the swankiest hotel in an otherwise no-frills end of the city
Read more of Ashley Smith’s story here in Docklands News (scroll down to P18)
read more...Statement on the John Curtin Hotel
Thursday, 24 March 2022
The Royal Historical Society of Victoria strongly supports the nomination of the John Curtin Hotel to the Victorian Heritage Register. Indeed, the RHSV has been providing historical information to assist the National Trust and Trades Hall with the nomination. On the basis of its historical associations alone, the hotel is clearly of state significance. We note, however, that it is also of some architectural significance.
read more...In the early 1930s Victoria Dock was one of the biggest sites for trade and export in Melbourne. A constant queue of ships sailed in, unloaded their cargo, recharged and reloaded, then left for the
next port. The RHSV’s researcher, Ashley Smith, has just written a great article about the birth of Victoria Dock for Docklands News (March edition)
Read the article here: https://www.docklandsnews.com.au/themes/user/site/dn/pdf/DN183.pdf (scroll down to P18)
read more...CBD News has just published Cheryl Griffin’s latest article, A stroll along Collins Street, 1900. A fabulous riff on a photo of everyday life snapped in December 1900 just weeks before the Colony of Victoria became one of 6 states in the new Commonwealth of Australia.
https://www.cbdnews.com.au/a-stroll-along-collins-st-1900
read more...
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