Saturday 28 March 2026
Day 1 Program:

12.00pm – East Gippsland Historical Society Museum.
For those arriving on Saturday, we will meet at the Society’s museum, located at 40 Macarthur Street, Bairnsdale. The building, originally designed by A J Kramer and built by the McKnockiter Bros. in 1891-92 for the Presbyterian Church, was used as a college until it closed in 1909. The society took over the building in 1972 and houses an extensive collection of artefacts and memorabilia both within the building and in the grounds.

2.00pm – “The Keeping Place”
The Krowathunkooloong “Keeping Place”, Dalmahoy Street, Bairnsdale. This museum is the custodian of the Gunaikurnai First Nations people history and is a place to understand and appreciate the living, vibrant and continuing culture of the Gunaikurnai people of East Gippsland. Admission to Keeping Place $10.00, if attending.

3.30pm – St Mary’s Church.
St Mary’s Church in Bairnsdale, Victoria, located on Main Street, Bairnsdale. The church is a prominent Romanesque-style Catholic church, renowned for its extensive, detailed murals painted by Italian migrant labourer and artist Francesco Floreani during the Great Depression (1931–1938).

6.00pm – Dinner – Grand Terminus Hotel
In the evening, an optional dinner at own cost will be held in the private dining room of the Grand Terminus Hotel, Bairnsdale.
Local historians will present stories on local identities who contributed to the development of the township of Bairnsdale.

Sunday 29 March 2026
Day 2 Program

9.30am-9.50am: Registration
Morning tea and lunch provided in registration fee.

9.50am: Welcome and introduction
Jacque Hocking, East Gippsland Historical Society

10.00am: Dr Steven Cooke, FRHistS, Executive Director, Royal Historical Society of Victoria.

10.15am: Rob Christie
A Convenient Scapegoat. Angus McMillan and the Gippsland Massacres.
Well-known local author and historian Rob Christie has meticulously researched and verified evidence that doesn’t exonerate McMillan entirely, but proves that while involved, he was not the leader and instigator of the atrocities suffered by the Indigenous populations of Gippsland.

11.15am: Morning tea

11.30am: Bill Jackson
Scotland to Glenaladale 1842. The story of Simon Gillies co-founder of Glenaladale Station.
Bill’s presentation follows the life of Simon Gillies who, along with Charles and Angus McLean, took up the Glenaladale Run license in 1845. From the “Hyland Clearances” to the production of wool, beef and crops on the rich Mitchell River flats, Gillies was one of the many who helped develop the area into the food bowl it is today.

12.30: Lunch

1.15: Sherryn Vardy
Community driven heritage: The 1897 Bullumwaal stage curtain.
Sherryn’s presentation, Community driven heritage: the 1897 Bullumwaal stage curtain, explores how community collections in regional areas are sometimes difficult to categorise and to manage. Since these objects are not located within an institution, such as a museum or historical collection, their care is often managed by the community, with little or no access to funding and support. The case study of the Bullumwaal stage curtain, painted in 1897 during the Gold Rush for the town’s Mechanics Hall, illustrates how a very small community, passionate about its past, knowledge-rich and wishing to keep their stage curtain in situ, managed to conserve this unique object.

2.15: Dr Jayne Rantall & Erin Fahy-Hampton
Stories from the archives: Aboriginal children and welfare in Gippsland and East Gippsland in the late twentieth century.
Jayne and Erin are Senior Research & Assessment Officers with the Stolen Generations Reparations Unit for the Department of Justice and Community Safety (DJCS). They will present an overview of the research they have been doing into the provision of welfare for Aboriginal children in the 1960s and 1970s in Gippsland and East Gippsland. They will discuss their experiences of traditional archives and how this sits alongside local knowledge and community archives.

3.15: Q & A Session.

3.30pm Thank you and Close