Category: Recent News

The Royal Historical Society of Victoria has written to The Honourable Gabrielle Williams, Minister for Government Services regarding the faltering funding for the Victorian Community History Awards and PROV’s essential grants program, Local History Grants. These two modestly funded program are essential to the ongoing well-being of Victoria’s 350 historical societies which are a much-loved feature in every electorate across Victoria.

Richard Broome, RHSV President, has also written to all our members asking them to lobby the Minister and their local member to ensure that funding is secured for the quadrennial period 2024 –

The 1.68 hectare bush garden and historic home of Australia’s second Prime Minister Alfred Deakin is on the lands of the Wadawurrung People, in the middle of “old Lonnie” (Point Lonsdale, VIC). Ballara is under threat of auction and development.

Join the campaign to save Ballara for the nation and to give it a future.

THE THREAT

Ballara on Victoria’s Bellarine peninsula, remains in the hands of Deakin’s descendants. However, it is now under threat.

Through a donor we’ve been able to commission talented artist, Alissa Duke, to do a series of sketches of life at the RHSV. So, if you come in to the Drill Hall over the next few weeks you might see Alissa sketching corners of our library, our volunteers lunching together, books (of course!), suitcases, manuscripts etc  These sketches will appear in our 2023 Annual Report and I hope they’ll end up in the book shop as ‘merch’.

We are thrilled to announce that the RHSV welcomes a new Marketing Officer, Sean Reynolds, this week. Sean says, “I’ve had over two decades leading marketing and content production for global companies, such as Electronic Arts and Warner Bros. I’ve spearheaded strategic campaigns across digital platforms, TV and emerging social media channels. When I’m not finding the core story to connect the audience with brands, you’ll find me geeking out over history with my “Melbourne Ghost Signs”

In 2008, Melbourne joined the UNESCO Creative Cities Network when it was designated the first and only City of Literature in Australia, and the second in the world after Edinburgh.

The network of Cities of Literature has grown considerably since then and one of the wonderful initiatives between these cities is to arrange virtual residencies for writers. This is the first year the RHSV has taken part and we are thrilled to host Bria Cotton,

History Month 2023 saw us launch a new History Month website and a record number of events and exhibitions and social media happenings across Victoria – all highlighting the great work that happens in the history sector and especially that generated by the 350 historical societies across Victoria. I hope all the organisations that took part in 2023 are dreaming up more exciting events for October 2024.

Many thanks to our co-ordinator, Susannah Beardsell and a huge thank you to The Vera Moore Foundation which funds the RHSV to produce History Month.

The Robur Tea Building, 28 Clarendon St, Southbank, a Victorian Heritage Registered site, was refused a development permit in May this year by Heritage Victoria.  But now the applicant for the development permit has requested a review of the determination and has requested an appeal hearing (see grounds below). The permit review hearing will be scheduled to take place in the coming months. The RHSV submitted a successful objection earlier in the year and will be following the review process too.

The Councillors, staff, volunteers and members of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria note with great sadness the death of our friend, Gordon Moffatt, on the 27th July 2023.

Gordon had been an active member of the RHSV since 1983 and, for three years 1983-85, served on Council. He was also a most generous supporter of the Society ensuring that Victorian history was valued and preserved.

We send our condolences to Gordon’s family on their loss.

The RHSV is very pleased to announce our second Historian-in-Residence, Dr Fiona Gatt, who has begun work on her project: The forgotten class? Shopkeepers of nineteenth-century Melbourne. Fiona explains: ‘Shopkeepers were important agents in the effective functioning of nineteenth-century Melbourne society. Yet the realities of that role in the community remain considerably under-researched. This project will illuminate the role of shopkeepers in nineteenth-century urban Melbourne, and it will prompt a question not adequately engaged with as yet: are they in fact the forgotten class of Australian history?

Heritage groups, community groups and individuals across Melbourne are condemning the City of Melbourne’s new plan to surround the Queen Victoria Market with three 25 – 40 storey towers. The $1.7 billion proposal, known as Gurrowa Place and announced in late June, also includes plans for a city square to be built on the market’s current southern car park.

Since the announcement, Charles Sowerwine, Chair of the RHSV Heritage Committee, has been a prominent voice in the media, 

The Royal Historical Society of Victoria welcomes the celebrations of NAIDOC week 2-9 July. The theme for this year is ‘For our Elders’ which celebrates the importance of Elders to the strength of families and communities across the generations. There is a continuity of Elder wisdom and knowledge in Aboriginal society that has stretched across 2000 generations.

All of us should pay heed to this respect shown by Aboriginal people to Elders. We should recognise the importance of elders in our own lives and our own families.

Tuesday 13 June 2023

Dear RHSV members,

I am sure you are as concerned and disappointed as I, and the RHSV Council, are by the recent decision in the 2023 state budget not to fund community history – both PROV’s Local History Grants Program and the Victorian Community History Awards.

History in this state and indeed across the country now receives very little support from government.  History is currently not part of government thinking at all levels on funding for the Arts or cultural policy.

The Royal Historical Society of Victoria acknowledges that Friday 26 May is National Sorry Day in recognition of the Stolen Generations in our history. We acknowledge the trauma experienced by Indigenous families across Australia, caused by the invidious policy in all jurisdictions for generations of removing Indigenous children from their families in the wrong and vain hope of separating them from their cultures. In some circumstances this continues making the need change and reconciliation even greater.

The Council of the RHSV stands for the principle of diversity. It affirms the RHSV’s continuing efforts to reflect the diversity of cultures in our contemporary society through our various collections and their catalogues, our publications, our events and other aspects and endeavours of our Society.

The Council acknowledges Indigenous Australians as Traditional Custodians of Country; is enhancing our Indigenous history in our catalogues, lectures and publications; supports the aspirations in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) and the Uluru Statement from the Heart (2017) and believes Australia’s First Peoples should be recognised in the Constitution.