In March the Polish Museum and Archives of Australia celebrates its 30th anniversary (slightly delayed because of COVID!) and all are welcome to join in Entry is free and food, entertainment and speakers are included. No BYO but drinks can be purchased at the bar. Bookings essential: polishmuseumarchivesaustralia@gmail.com or Barbara Capewell on 0402 002 429
Read More...

Camberwell Historical Society hosts this event. Harold Holt: Always One Step Further, details Holt’s life as both a person and a politician. The story is told in three sections: Holt’s life from childhood, leading up to his prime ministership, his first year as prime minister, and his second and tragic, final year. Harold Holt is
Read More...

‘Good history is a high-wire gravity-defying act of balance and grace,’ Tom Griffiths wrote recently, describing historians as writers who, ‘have to forsake their own world for a period – and then, somehow, find their way back.’ In our first session of Writers on Campus for 2023 we speak with two historians who are adept at walking that high-wire, and at time travel. Come hear two of La Trobe’s most acclaimed historians, Judith Brett and Katie Holmes, discuss why they do what they do, and how they approach the work and craft of making history, in conversation with Kelly Gardiner

Vera Deakin, daughter of former Prime Minister Alfred Deakin, rallied to the British imperial cause in 1915 by assuming a leadership role in the fledgling Australian Red Cross Society. Aged only 23, she became founding secretary of the Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau, first in Cairo and then in London. The bureau’s
Read More...

Tahbilk Winery has generously offered their Wetlands View Restaurant to host the launch of the Explorers Way tourist drive and brochure, a project of Nagambie Historical Society, in collaboration with the Strathbogie Shire. The Explorers Way revives the Major Mitchell Bicentennial Trail through the Shire, from Mitchellstown to Violet Town. It then travels, in reverse, the tracks of Hume and Hovell, returning through Euroa and Longwood to Avenel. The drive visits every cairn and memorial to the explorers in those areas, and the map brochure details other points of interest in each town. Roads less travelled have been used for the drive to highlight the beauty of the Shire, away from the freeways; long arching tunnels of eucalypts, golden pastures with stands of ancient trees, wooden bridges and tree-lined creeks, with the blue of the ranges always in the distance.

In 2014, Major-General Mike O’Brien gave us a list of men with a connection to East Melbourne who had volunteered for the 1st World War. As a result of enthusiastic volunteers, we now have an archive of around 600 war records, some of which we would like to share with you at our April meeting.
Read More...

Historical Walks in Carlton These walks are run by the Princes Hill Community Centre in conjunction with the Carlton Community History Group. To register, contact Princes Hill Community Centre: www.princeshill.org.au Email: enquiries@princeshill.org.au Phone: 9387 7740. This tour takes you around an interesting and historic part of Carlton to hear its history and the history of
Read More...

In a foreign climate and environment, how did European women adapt to living in rural Victoria and the emerging suburbs of Melbourne? Explore and delight in the opulent tastes and styles adopted by women through nineteenth century gowns from the fashion and design collection of the Kew Historical Society. Mary Ann Henty came with her
Read More...