Upcoming Events
April 2023
Law and Order Under La Trobe: The First Prisons of Port Phillip
The Royal Historical Society of Victoria, in partnership with the C J La Trobe Society, presents the annual A. G. L. Shaw lecture delivered by Dr Ashleigh Green, the current La Trobe Society Fellow at the State Library of Victoria. Dr Green's fellowship topic is very interesting and, until her current work, little researched. Dr Green has investigated the planning and construction of the first purpose-built penal and psychiatric institutions in the Port Phillip District and Colony of Victoria during…
Thomas Bent, Francis Bradford and electric tramways in Melbourne 1904-1909
In 1904, electrical and mechanical engineer Francis Edwin Bradford (1869-1927), a recognised American electric tramways pioneer, was controversially contracted directly by Thomas Bent, Victorian Minister of Railways, and Premier, to report on and progressively electrify Melbourne’s suburban railway system. But Bent postponed work on the report, and instead requested Bradford design and supervise the construction of an electric tramway from St.Kilda to Brighton, as a first stage of electrifying the railways. Bent's instructions did not sit well with the Railway Commissioners.
May 2023
The ‘Golden Age’
THE 'GOLDEN AGE' : LA TROBE'S JOURNEY HOME Speaker John Botham, Chair of Friends of La Trobe's Cottage. The illustrated talk describes La Trobe’s journey home to England on the Paddle Steamer 'Golden Age' on the first commercial passage across the Pacific in 1854. He made fifty-eight sketches on the journey. including thirty-seven during a six-day stopover in Tahiti. In Panama the passengers had to travel across the isthmus by mule and train to join the Royal Mail Steamers for…
Lessons from history: colonial foundations of criminal justice in Victoria
We are delighted that The Hon Justice Chris Maxwell AC will deliver the Society's inaugural Paul Mullaly History and Law Lecture during Law Week 2023. This lecture will explore the value of legal history, both as a window into social and political history and as an aid to understanding the present state of the law. By way of illustration, the lecture will highlight key aspects of criminal justice in colonial Victoria - jury trials, the role of the trial judge,…
239 A'Beckett Street Melbourne, Victoria, 3000 
03 9326 9288 
office@historyvictoria.org.au 
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