The National Trust of Australia (Victoria) and the Royal Historical Society of Victoria will present a public meeting at the Drill Hall which will present the NTAV and RHSV joint statement "More Housing and Heritage Must Go Hand in Hand” and the Charter 29 Report, “Reforming the Reforms.” 

Recently, the library of esteemed community historian Weston Bate was donated to the RHSV. Amongst the many gems was a rare book, Scapegoats of the Empire, written in Lancefield and published in 1907 about military crimes half a world away in South Africa. The author, George Witton, was the 3rd defendant in the military trial for murder brought against Breaker Morant and Peter Handcock. Morant and Handcock were executed by firing squad and Witton was jailed for life. Join distinguished historian Dr Andrew Lemon AM as he explores not just Scapegoats but looks to the rich literature that is spawned when the truth gets murky. 

Is our history in a drawer, a scrapbook, or a curated collection? Speaker: Mandy Bede This talk will focus on a selection of ephemera collections, teasing out the theme of how our history is preserved. Join Mandy Bede, President of the Ephemera Society of Australia, as she shows examples of printed Australian ephemeral material from
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Join the curator, Dr Judith Buckrich, of our current exhibition Yarra Birrarung: Artists, Writers and the River in a behind-the-scenes talk about the exhibition. The exhibition is an illustrated history of life on the Yarra. Through the lens of artists and writers, the exhibition explores how life has flourished on the river, including recreation, industry and land use, as well as infrastructure, natural history and social history.

In the context of a major revamp of the Victorian planning system, this seminar asks how we can make positive use of heritage as we plan to house more people. How can we modify Plan Victoria to make full use of heritage as anchor and focus for new neighbourhoods?

On 1st October 1839, the newly appointed Superintendent of the Port Phillip District, Charles La Trobe, came ashore in Melbourne for the first time. He was greeted by William Lonsdale, who had been sent to the district as de facto superintendent, and Police Magistrate in late 1836. Lonsdale, a recently retired officer of the 4th Regiment (King's Own) had come to Port Phillip  with a small 'garrison' of an Ensign and 30 men from the same regiment. He forged a close relationship with La Trobe over the coming years even though La Trobe was distinctly non-military. While neither had direct command of the 'garrison', which reported to HQ in Sydney, the soldiers had an important role in providing the ultimate, mostly symbolic, Imperial underpinning of La Trobe's authority.