Past Events
March 2022
The history of voting in Victoria by Professor Marilyn Lake AO
Professor Marilyn Lake AO, has graciously agreed to speak about the history of voting in Victoria, when women were able to vote, when voting became compulsory and the part League of Women Voters Victoria (LWVV) played.
MILESTONES IN ABORIGINAL WOMEN’S ACTIVISM, MELBOURNE 1930-1970
This, our inaugural Indigenous History lecture, is a stellar addition to our annual program of Distinguished Lecturers. The lecture has been generously sponsored so we can make it free-of-charge and as accessible as possible. Welcome to Country will be performed by respected Elder, Aunty Zeta Thomson. Our President, Richard Broome, will chair this event. We are thrilled that Dr Julie Andrews has agreed to be deliver the inaugural Indigenous History lecture. Julie is descended from the Woiwurrung people of Melbourne…
VINTAGE HOTELWARE with DI SANDILANDS
When table manners were fashionable, eating houses proudly served meals on crockery emblazoned with their establishment name – each mouthful reminding customers of exactly where they were. Join Di for a fun night when she'll be displaying many Victorian pieces from her vintage hotelware collection, telling their stories and hers. She'll also be selling her pure linen Coles Cafeteria art tea towels which are printed with each cafeteria location throughout Australia.
KALEIDOSCOPE
This exhibition is biography imagined through the lens of a Kaleidoscope. The viewer is offered fragments of the lives represented here. There is no linear narrative. Each time the kaleidoscope turns, a different story emerges. There are repeating patterns but different emphases and new ways of seeing, new reflections, new refractions. No one story dominates and one story does not fit all.
April 2022
A G L SHAW LECTURE: The Barristers of the Port Phillip District, 1839-1851
The first barristers arrived in Melbourne in 1839, the same year as Charles La Trobe, but only 14 were admitted to practice before 1851. Separation from NSW and the discovery of gold totally transformed the Bar, with fifty new barristers being admitted by 1854. All came from the United Kingdom and brought with them the traditions, ethics and etiquette of the English, Irish and Scottish bars, though these transplanted somewhat uneasily to the rough and ready makeshift courts of the…
Launch of Analysing Australian History
Join the RHSV and Cambridge University Press for the invite you to attend the launch of, Analysing Australian History, a series of four textbooks for the new Australian History Year 12 Study Design 2022-26
Launch of “Across Bass Strait”
Across Bass Strait, which will be launched by The Hon Barry Jones AO, is a history of the connection which commenced in the 1840s between squatters, merchants and mariners to develop the livestock trade from the mainland to Van Diemen’s Land. The trade established nineteenth-century Gippsland as a prime beef producer exporting through Port Albert, a now-forgotten port, and this account is based on merchants’ records and letters from two families who were major players in this trade.
May 2022
Weston Bate Oration & RHSV AGM
Following our AGM at 5pm, we are delighted that Dr Andrew Lemon will present this year's Weston Bate oration, AUSTRALIAN HISTORY AS LITERATURE: AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE AS HISTORY. Andrew contemplates the nature of the divide between the writing of history and the writing of fiction. Our best historians—including the late Weston Bate—are invariably outstanding writers, but why is it that historians are so rarely included when the literary world acclaims the best Australian writers? This lecture looks at the writing of Australian history as literature, and considers why journalists and storytellers customarily outsell academic historians when writing on historical subjects. Does this matter? Should aspiring historians be taught about good writing and literary technique? Has jargon and cliché prevailed in the academic teaching and writing of history?
June 2022
The Rise and Fall of the Iron Bridge
In June we are thrilled that Miles Lewis will be returning to the RHSV, in partnership with Engineering Heritage Victoria to talk about Iron Bridges. The earliest cast iron bridges imitated those in timber or stone, because there was no established idea of what an iron bridge should be like, and most of them were simple arches. But over the next century wrought iron, and then steel, became important bridge-building materials. The arch bridge was joined by the suspension bridge, the box girder, the parallel-chorded girder, and even more elaborate forms. And bridges fabricated in Europe were sent across the world to places like Latin America, Japan, and India. Exported bridges faced special problems - the cost and difficulty of transporting the components, the lack of skilled labour at the site, and unexpected foundation problems and hydrological conditions. These prefabricated bridges will be the main focus of the presentation.
July 2022
Australia’s Great Depression
We are thrilled that Joan Beaumont, Professor Emerita of History at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, will deliver our July lecture on her profound history of Australia’s Great Depression. Beaumont says, ‘The pandemic has much common with the Great Depression. Australians today have confronted external threats, that neither they nor their governments could control. Everyone has had to dig deep for resilience. The pandemic like the Depression confirmed how important local and state loyalties are. Voters…
August 2022
School of Historical and Philosophical Studies Fellows & Associates Annual Research Day
On Friday 12 August, the SHAPS Fellows & Associates will hold their first Research Day since 2019. RHSV members are invited to attend. Our conference day includes papers by Australian and French historians John Lack, Helen Davies, Jean Ely, Greg Burgess, Rosemary Francis, Wendy Dick, Richard Gillespie, Tony Ward and Fay Woodhouse. It will traverse terrain such as radicals, rags and revues in 1950s and 1960s Melbourne, the immigrant Gagliardi brothers, the 1872 Education Act and centralised education, a sequel to the Emile and Isaac Pereire story, early inhabitants of the Hunter River, a federated Australia, the 150 years of the Prisoners' Aid Society and the importance of kindness.
WRITING LOCAL HISTORY WORKSHOP
All-day workshops for Victorians interested in writing local history. Participants will:
gain new perspectives on local history
discover how to locate and use new primary and secondary sources
learn how to write and present well for different audiences, both established and new.
Portable Buildings talk, briefing & lunch
This briefing session, talk & lunch is an invitation-only event. Invitations have been sent to all historical societies which have portable buildings in their area. This event is only open to people representing one of the historical societies that have been invited to attend. Please do not RSVP unless you have been invited. Charles Sowerwine, RHSV Councillor, Chair of the RHSV Heritage Committee and member of the Portable Buildings World Heritage Nomination Task Force, invites local historical societies who have…
September 2022
Friends of La Trobe’s Cottage Annual Lecture: The Lady of St Kilda
This illustrated talk explains how the Schooner Lady of St Kilda connected La Trobe’s naming of St Kilda with the remote Scottish island of St Kilda. A second link involved the Barque Priscilla. She carried 36 St Kilda migrants, but only 16 survived the voyage to Port Phillip.
Fatal Contact: Introduced epidemics among Australia’s Colonial Australian First Nations
This talk by Peter Dowling explores the devastating infectious diseases introduced into the Indigenous populations of Australia after the arrival of the British colonists in 1788. Epidemics of smallpox, tuberculosis, influenza, measles and sexually transmitted diseases swept through the indigenous populations of the continent well into the twentieth century.
October 2022
FREE SECULAR COMPULSORY. 150th ANNIVERSARY OF THE VICTORIAN EDUCATION ACT 1872, CONFERENCE 2022.
Our past informs our present and our future. Our education system shapes our society. The way we are taught, the way we learn—these questions have always been sharply debated. This unique two-day conference offers an impressive range of expert historians and educationists who will share their reflections on Victoria’s education system since the passing of the Education Act in 1872. The program is built around the three key elements : Free, Secular and Compulsory. What did that mean then, and…
Emerging Historians Showcase
Each year, the Professional Historians Association (VIC & TAS) and the RHSV partner to present this eagerly awaited event which showcases some of the fresh and exciting work being undertaken by emerging historians.
In 2022 the emerging historians we'll be showcasing include: Sarah Craze "The Battle to Play Sport on Sunday in Camberwell', Portia Dilena "The Albury Study Centre of the RCAE and feminism in 1970s Albury-Wodonga"and
Nicola Dobinson "British-Iranian Diplomacy in the 1970s: Insights from a History of Emotions Approach".
Seeds of Concrete Progress: Grain Elevators and Technology Transfer between America and Australia
Modern concrete silos and grain elevators are a persistent source of interest and fascination for architects, industrial archaeologists, painters, photographers, and artists. The legacy of the Australian examples of the early 1900s is appreciated primarily by a popular culture that allocates value to these structures on aesthetic grounds. Several aspects of construction history associated with this early modern form of civil engineering have been less explored.
VCE Australian History Workshop on Study Design Year 1
The RHSV is hosting a workshop for teachers of VCE Australian History. Leading classroom teachers, textbook writers and educators, including Bill Lewis, James Jacobs, Jo Leech, Erin Crook, Richard Broome, Graeme Davison and Rosalie Triolo will speak and participate in teacher Q & A and discussions of each Study Design. PROGRAM …
“Trust me on This”
Event presented by the Fellows’ Group of the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne. Social Trust is an important glue binding societies together. For just one example, countries with high trust levels had significantly better results in tackling Covid. And trust has also been a powerful driver of economic development. But there is another side – high levels of trust also create opportunities for the shyster, those benefiting from spreading mistrust. In this wide-ranging talk, Tony Ward discusses the nature of social trust. He also argues that some, especially economic, developments are now working to diminish trust.
November 2022
EMPERORS IN LILLIPUT: CLEM CHRISTESEN OF MEANJIN & STEPHEN MURRAY-SMITH OF OVERLAND
Literary magazine editors used to be rather imperial in style, exercising a great deal of influence in what has always been a rather restricted field: literary culture. Clem Christesen and Stephen Murray-Smith projected real authority as they fought the cultural and political battles of the day.
What is a Drill Hall?
Recently the RHSV took part in Open House Melbourne which concentrated our minds on the history and architecture of our home, the Australian Army Medical Corps Drill Hall which was built, like so many others in 1938 in the build-up to WWII. The building's history, its original purpose and its architecture are inextricably linked. And who better to explain those connections than Mike O'Brien? Mike will be addressing Drill Halls in general - what is drill? what happens in drill halls?
February 2023
Well Built: Simmie & Co Master Builders 1924 – 1978
Simmie & Co was a prominent building company in Melbourne (1924-1978) and in Canberra (1926-1969). In Melbourne the company was highly successful and built many iconic buildings, churches, monasteries, schools, housing, factories, defence works, the Shrine forecourt (1939-45), offices and theatres including some heritage-listed constructions (one designed by Robin Boyd). The founders were three Victorian brothers, all born in the last decade of the nineteenth century and all worked at the Sunshine Harvester factory before World War One – William, Jock & George. All were World War One veterans (two were Gallipoli veterans). All were wounded and survived. Two were closely involved with the Master Builders Association in Melbourne. Discover their story of a pioneering building company of the early to mid-twentieth century, of World War One veterans, of courage and a willingness to take a risk, of the beginning of the capital city of Australia and the workers, the unsung heroes, who made it all happen.
Launch of “Well Built: Simmie & Co Master Builders 1924 – 1978” exhibition
Join Dr Andrew Lemon FRHSV AM when he launches the exhibition, Well Built: Simmie & Co Master Builders 1924 - 1978 and book, Family Business: The Simmies of Simmie & Co and Harpsdale, both created by historian and curator, Dr Andrew Kilsby. Simmie & Co was a prominent building company in Melbourne (1924-1978) and in Canberra (1926-1969). In Melbourne the company was highly successful and built many iconic buildings, churches, monasteries, schools, housing, factories, defence works, the Shrine forecourt (1939-45),…
Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung histories in early colonial Melbourne: Country, Ancestors, and the management of newcomers
This lecture is the 2nd RHSV Indigenous History Lecture which forms part of our annual Distinguished Lecturer Series. This lecture explores Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung histories of the early period of the invasion of their Country. In this lecture, Rachel – a non-Indigenous historian - and Karen – a Wurundjeri Elder and Traditional Owner-historian - outline how we came to work together and the development of our collaborative research relationship as an example of new directions in Indigenous history. In our work…
March 2023
Jessie Webb Society Morning Tea
At this Jessie Webb Society event, we are delighted that Richard Simmie has agreed to talk to our members about his passion for history and philanthropy.
Richard is the grandson of Jock Simmie, one of the founders of Simmie & Co in the 1920s. Simmie & Co were builders responsible for many of the buildings we know and love in Melbourne and Canberra. The RHSV is currently hosting a wonderful exhibition about Simmie & Co and their legacy. At the launch Richard spoke very movingly about his growing understanding of the importance of recording stories and history and how this led him to preserve his own family's history but also, through philanthropy, to create scholarships in perpetuity which honour his grandfather's life's work.
SEMINAR DAY: MAXIMISE OPPORTUNITIES Strengthen your work within and beyond your society
The seminar days resume in 2023 with the first being held in Melbourne ‘in person’ and ‘by Zoom’. The program is based on information gleaned from calls to societies during lockdowns along with more recent communications. In a day that seeks to strengthen the best of existing work and inspire fresh approaches, all RHSV members are invited to learn from informed speakers and share their society’s successes.
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…
An evening in Melbourne’s Lanes
We'd like to invite our members and friends to an old-fashioned slide night! Our Publications Committee, volunteers and staff have been working hard on producing a new edition of Weston Bate's immensely popular 1994 publication, Essential but Unplanned, The Story of Melbourne's Lanes. It is an exciting project which has already delivered to the RHSV some major serendipitous benefits which we want to celebrate and share with our members although the book itself will be released in 2024. Richard Broome…
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,…
Ned Kelly; a new lens
Partway through the Jerilderie Letter, Ned Kelly accused Senior Constable Anthony Strahan of threatening to shoot him ‘like a dog’. Two days after Anthony reputedly made his threat, Ned and his gang shot dead three policemen at Stringybark Creek, believing one of the cops was Anthony. Lachlan Strahan, Anthony’s great-great-grandson, and author of "Justice in Kelly Country" grew up believing Ned Kelly was a heroic outlaw and Anthony the ruthless cop who pursued him. Yet, as he combed through letters,…
June 2023
Book launch: Failed Ambitions Kew Cottages and Changing Ideas of Intellectual Disabilities
La Trobe University and the Royal Historical Society of Victoria invite you to the launch of FAILED AMBITIONS: KEW COTTAGES AND CHANGING IDEAS OF INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY
written by Lee-Ann Monk and David Henderson with Christine Bigby, Richard Broome and Katie Holmes
Published by Monash University Publishing
Sludge: Water Supply and Pollution in the Gold Rush
Sludge is the compelling story of the forgotten filth that plagued nineteenth-century Victoria. It exposes the big dirty secret of Victoria’s mining history – the way it transformed the state’s water and land, and how the battle against sludge helped lay the ground for the modern environmental movement.
AGM + WESTON BATE ORATION
Protected industries, protected men: the dilemmas of wartime service, 1939-46
The 2023 Weston Bate Oration will be delivered by distinguished historian, Dr Bart Ziino in what is a thrilling first for the RHSV. Bart was the recipient of our inaugural study grant, generously funded by our magnificent philanthropist, Gordon Moffatt AM.
July 2023
Launch: Garryowen’s Melbourne
Richard Broome, President, and Councillors of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria invite you to the launch of our exhibition, to be launched by Councillor Nicholas Reece Deputy Lord Mayor, City of Melbourne on Thursday, 13 July from 5:30pm - 7pm at the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, 239 A'Beckett St Melbourne VIC 3000 Garryowen's Melbourne has been curated by Dr Liz Rushen AM This project was supported by a grant from The English-Speaking Union (Victoria Branch) …
Rare books from the RHSV collection
We are thrilled that Rare Book Week and its fair are back after a three-year COVID hiatus! The Royal Historical Society of Victoria has had a very active collecting policy both in Australia and back ‘home’ in the UK since its creation in 1909. In the 1920s, when the Victorian Branch of the Royal Geographical Society closed, their archive and library were absorbed by the RHSV. Whereas our collection is concentrated on the history of Victoria, the RGS collection is…
August 2023
George Arden, gentleman drunkard
We are delighted that author and historian, Susan Priestley FRHSV, will be delivering this lecture which explores the background and career of editor and author George Arden, whose life compiled by the late P.L. Brown, Geelong and Western District historian, was an entry in the first volume of the Australian Dictionary of Biography (1966). Arden together with his two brothers provide variant exemplars of the lifestyle and widely variant fortunes encountered when gentlemanly emigrants, along with the multitude of others, took the colonial plunge into Britain’s nineteenth century world, thereby illuminating the idiosyncrasies of multi-coloured humanity.
George Weickhardt (1906-2000) and the pioneer engineers of Victoria
This presentation, by Ken McInnes, will bring to the fore the research by George Weickhardt (1906-2000), and in particular his research on the pioneer engineers of Victoria and their contributions to the early developments in the colony. George was an active member of Engineering Heritage Victoria (EHV) in the 1980s, and presented and published many papers on engineering history. He also produced a well-received series of articles about pioneer engineers published in The Victorian Historical Journal and his unpublished research papers and manuscripts are held in the archives at the Royal Historical Society of Victoria (RHSV). This overview of the life, the works and contributions of the pioneer engineers, as researched and described in George’s published papers and recently catalogued archives, is relevant to all who are interested in the history of Victoria.
Book Launch: LINE OF BLOOD: The Truth of Alfred Howitt by Craig Horne
David Tenenbaum, Publisher, Melbourne Books invites you
to the launch of LINE OF BLOOD: The Truth of Alfred Howitt by Craig Horne.
To be launched by Hilary McPhee
September 2023
Beyond the Docks: The Oil Rigs Symposium
A public forum for changing the way we see and understand ‘Maritime Melbourne and Victoria’
Join ‘Amphibious’ Curator and cultural programmer Valentina Bydanova, partnering with RMIT early career Photographer Jesse Grey, in the Beyond the Docks Symposium to explore the Bass Strait oil rigs and their history as a ‘community landscape’ or, we should say, seascape.
Book launch: My Grandfather’s Clock: Four Centuries of a British-Australian Family, by Graeme Davison
A great-aunt's bequest - a 200-year-old grandfather clock - sends historian Graeme Davison on a journey deep into his father's family's past. From their tribal homeland in the Scottish Borders he follows them to the garrison town of Carlisle, from industrial Birmingham to Edwardian Australia, and from the Great War to his own suburban childhood. This is the story of an ordinary family's journey from frontier warfare and dispossession through economic turmoil and emigration to modest prosperity. At each step, we are led to reflect on the puzzles of personal identity and the mystery of time. Based on a lifetime of creative scholarship, My Grandfather's Clock is a moving testament to the power of family history to illuminate the present.
HUGH ANDERSON LECTURE DELIVERED BY PROFESSOR SHEILA FITZPATRICK
We are thrilled that distinguished historian, Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick will deliver the 2nd RHSV Hugh Anderson Lecture. Sheila turns her historian’s gaze to the block of flats where she grew up and where most other residents were European Jewish refugees.
October 2023
CURATOR’S TOUR OF GARRYOWEN’S MELBOURNE WITH DR LIZ RUSHEN
THIS EVENT HAS BOOKED OUT BUT THERE IS ANOTHER SCHEDULED FOR TUESDAY 28 NOVEMBER AT 2PM. BOOK HERE Historian Dr Liz Rushen will take you behind the scenes of our current exhibition, Garryowen's Melbourne which Liz curated. The exhibition grew out of the research Liz had done for her book, Garryowen Unmasked: The Life of Edmund Finn, which was launched earlier this year and was aided by her deep knowledge of the RHSV collection and its treasures. The tour will…
Emerging Historians: The element of surprise in historical research
As part of History Month we partner with Professional Historians Association (Victoria & Tasmania) to host an event where three historians talk about a moment of amazing coincidence or serendipity in their research – it could be coming across a vital piece of information or finding just the right contact or network, seemingly by chance. It is always a great night to hear from young historians who research a remarkably wide range of subjects. The hosts for the evening are Andrew Lemon…
Making It Here: Stories of Four Enterprising Immigrant Engineers.
Much has been written about the halcyon days of manufacturing in Fishermans Bend during the post-war period. This talk explores its antecedents through the lives of four, largely forgotten, engineers who made significant contributions to the rise of manufacturing there during the first half of the 20th century: Otto Schumacher, Alfred Harman, Albert Longoni and Fred David.
CHARTING A COURSE – REFLECTIONS ON 35 YEARS AT THE HELM
Following the 5pm MMHN AGM, at 6pm the illustrious Patron of MMHN, Dr. Kevin Fewster, will speak on ‘Charting a course - reflections on 35 years at the helm' during his extraordinary 35 year international career in Maritime Museums including Director of Royal Museums Greenwich (RMG), the world’s largest and most visited maritime museum precinct.
Closer to ‘home’, Kevin was the founding Director of the South Australian Maritime Museum; Director of the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) and of the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. Kevin will reflect on what are essential elements to consider in a successful maritime museum today and the issues that face such cultural institutions.
November 2023
ROSS MCMULLIN ON “LIFE SO FULL OF PROMISE”
An event with Ross is always much anticipated. Ross McMullin is an award-winning historian and biographer, a renowned storyteller, an entertaining speaker, and a longstanding RHSV member. His multi-biography Farewell, Dear People was awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History, and in his new sequel Life So Full of Promise, Ross has again combined prodigious research and narrative flair in a collection of interwoven family stories about forgotten Australians who had radiant potential.
CONVICTION POLITICS: A DIGITAL INVESTIGATION OF THE CONVICT ROOTS OF AUSTRALIAN DEMOCRACY
This event is organised by the Descendants of Convicts Group Inc (DOCS) together with the RHSV. Conviction Politics is an international digital history project exploring the impact of radicals and rebels transported as political convicts to their place of exile in Australia. Project leader, Associate Professor Tony Moore from Monash University, will take us through the project’s discoveries, media and exhibition, including screening a selection of short documentaries. Tony will explain how Conviction Politics overturns the orthodoxy of how we think about convict Australia. The project reveals how Australia’s first ‘unfree’ workforce resisted exploitation and subordination through inventive solidarity in the face of coercion, while a vanguard of rebels, liberal pamphleteers, industrial protestors and radical agitators changed the political direction of the Australian colonies.
RIO TINTO IN AUSTRALIA
Robert’s lecture will discuss Rio Tinto’s formation and the evolution of its main business activities in Australia. A focus of his lecture will be the initial and ongoing connections of the company with Melbourne and Victoria. After a patchy start in Australia, in 1962, Rio Tinto merged with Consolidated Zinc to form Conzinc Riotinto of Australia (CRA). Under the leadership of legendary mining figure, Sir Maurice Mawby, CRA progressed the development of the aluminium industry in Australia, the establishment of Australia’s export iron ore industry based on the Mount Tom Price deposit in the Pilbara, as well as a major copper operation on the island of Bougainville. The early Australian management saw themselves as contributing to Australia’s post-war development and nation building.
CURATOR’S TOUR OF GARRYOWEN’S MELBOURNE WITH DR LIZ RUSHEN
Historian Dr Liz Rushen will take you behind the scenes of our current exhibition, Garryowen's Melbourne which Liz curated. The exhibition grew out of the research Liz had done for her book, Garryowen Unmasked: The Life of Edmund Finn, which was launched earlier this year and was aided by her deep knowledge of the RHSV collection and its treasures.
February 2024
CURATOR’S TOUR OF GARRYOWEN’S MELBOURNE WITH DR LIZ RUSHEN
Historian Dr Liz Rushen will take you behind the scenes of our current exhibition, Garryowen's Melbourne which Liz curated. The exhibition grew out of the research Liz had done for her book, Garryowen Unmasked: The Life of Edmund Finn, which was launched earlier this year and was aided by her deep knowledge of the RHSV collection and its treasures. The tour will be followed by afternoon tea.
BOOK LAUNCH: ABORIGINAL VICTORIANS. A HISTORY SINCE 1800.
Please join us for the launch of the second edition of the double award-winning history by Emeritus Professor Richard Broome AM, ABORIGINAL VICTORIANS. A HISTORY SINCE 1800.
Music by singer songwriter Butjulla and Gubbi Gubbi man, Gavin Somers.
To be launched by Gunditjmara woman, Jill Gallagher AO, CEO of VACCHO (Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation)
The MC will be La Trobe University’s Indigenous Studies Professor Julie Andrews OAM, a Yorta Yorta and Woiwurrung woman and member of the Dhul-an-yagan family clan of the Ulupna people.
BILLIBELLARY INDIGENOUS HISTORY LECTURE. The view from here: thinking about Australian Indigenous histories and their future.
We are honoured that Professor Lynette Russell AM will deliver the 2024 Billibellary Indigenous History Lecture at the RHSV. Professor Lynette Russell AM FASSA FAHA (Sir John Monash Distinguished Professor and ARC Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Professor at Monash University’s Indigenous Studies Centre) is an award-winning historian and Indigenous studies scholar. Her research is broadly anthropological history. Russell has published widely in the areas of theory, Indigenous histories, post-colonialism and representations of race, museum studies and popular culture.
BOOK LAUNCH OF UNIVERSITIES IN TIMES OF CRISIS AND DISRUPTION BY LORRAINE LING AND KAY LIVINGSTON
To be launched by Professor John Dewar AO Vice-Chancellor and President of La Trobe University.
This book examines the role and future of universities in times of chronic disruption and crisis – presented via an original conceptual framework which the authors term ‘Dislocated Complexity’ – and discusses how to move forward in the face of severely disrupted social, political, economic and environment contexts.
March 2024
CURATOR’S TOUR OF GARRYOWEN’S MELBOURNE WITH DR LIZ RUSHEN
Historian Dr Liz Rushen will take you behind the scenes of our current exhibition, Garryowen's Melbourne which Liz curated. The exhibition grew out of the research Liz had done for her book, Garryowen Unmasked: The Life of Edmund Finn, which was launched earlier this year and was aided by her deep knowledge of the RHSV collection and its treasures.
The tour will be followed by afternoon tea.
Women’s humanitarian work is never done: Women humanitarians and war child refugees in the 20th century
We are delighted that Professor Joy Damousi AM FASSA FAHA, one of Australia’s most distinguished historians and humanities thought leaders, will deliver the 2023 Women's History Month Lecture, part of our Distinguished Lecture series. Joy is the Immediate Past President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and a Fellow of both the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
CORNERS OF MELBOURNE: THE GREAT ORANGE-PEEL PANIC AND OTHER STORIES FROM THE STREETS
What better defines a city than its street corners? A corner gives you a starting point, a destination and a place to turn. It’s furnished with pillar boxes, newsstands and tram stops, and lamp-posts for light and lounging. Where would you be likeliest to find a pub? At the corner, of course. And who better than Robyn Annear to usher you around the corners of Melbourne, and reveal their bizarre, baroque and mostly forgotten stories?
April 2024
Welcome home for our Terlecki timber piano front
Please join us to celebrate the restoration and reframing of our glorious carved Terlecki timber piano front. This piano front was donated to us by Keith Kilner representing his wider family and the recent restoration was paid for with a donation from the Boak family. We are enormously grateful to both families for their generosity. We'll be celebrating in style with a sparkling morning tea at the RHSV premises, 239 A'Beckett St and we'll be hosting members of both the Kilner and Boak families.
EXHIBITION LAUNCH: MELBOURNE’S STORIED LANEWAYS
PLEASE JOIN US FOR THE LAUNCH OF MELBOURNE'S STORIED LANEWAYS Launched by Julian O'Shea Curated by David Thompson Designed by Daisy Searls Thursday 11 April, 5:30pm - 7pm We all have our favourite Melbourne laneway and curator, David Thompson, has chosen his favourites which reveal some intriguing Melbourne stories. When we think of today's gussied-up tourist-friendly laneways like Guilford Lane and Hosier Lane, it is hard to imagine that a mere 50 years ago the laneways were workaday places full…
A G L Shaw Lecture. Anti-Slavery and Protection in Port Phillip and NSW: the Curious Colonial Afterlife of the 1837 Select Committee Report on Aborigines
The AGL Shaw lecture has been presented in partnership with the C J La Trobe Society for many years. It is one of the RHSV's Distinguished Lectures and we are thrilled that, in 2024, Professor Penny Edmonds from the Flinders University will be delivering the lecture. In 1838 Quaker James Backhouse posted the 1837 Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Aboriginal Tribes (British Settlements) ‘hot off the press’ from Cape Town to key figures he had met in the Australian colonies, including missionary George Langhorne, with instructions for it to be sent to Police Magistrate Foster Fyans and Captain William Lonsdale in Port Phillip. The much-studied 1837 report is often described as the ‘blueprint’ for imperial reform and the protection of Aboriginal peoples in the colonies. Backhouse sent the report to New South Wales including to three men of influence whom he had met in Sydney – the Colonial Secretary Alexander McLeay, police magistrate Archibald Innes and Reverend John Saunders. These three men would be central to the formation of the Sydney branch of the Aborigines’ Protection Society or the ‘Australian APS’, suggesting that the report’s distribution was part of a transimperial moment of humanitarian activism.
South Yarra Water Works Company (1854 – 1863)
Our first co-presentation with Engineering Heritage Victoria in 2024 will be by Ken McInnes who will explore the history, the entrepreneurs, the engineers, the operations, the expansion and the demise of the short lived South Yarra Water Works Company (1854 – 1863). In 1854, 170 years ago, Yan Yean Reservoir was completed. Over the following ten years water was progressively reticulated to the houses and businesses of Melbourne and its suburbs.
239 A'Beckett Street Melbourne, Victoria, 3000 
03 9326 9288 
office@historyvictoria.org.au 
Office & Library: Weekdays 9am-5pm
