It is Family History Month at Yarra Plenty Regional Library.

The 150th anniversary of State Schooling in Victoria provides fresh opportunities for family, school and local historians.

Some type of ‘formal schooling’ has played part in most families’ and local communities’ lives, particularly in recent times. The Education Act of 1872 (Victoria) was the first of its kind in the world, offering free, compulsory and secular education to Victoria’s children aged 6-15 years old. Although there have been exceptions since ‘day one’, the anniversary ‘spotlights’ resources and approaches, both old and new, for writing richer family and local histories.

Dr Rosalie Triolo will share snapshots of both as relevant to family historians, referencing also her research on Education Department schools and their families in World War I as part of our Family History Month program this August.

Dr Rosalie Triolo is a senior lecturer at Monash University and writes and presents widely in History Education and history of Australian education. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, Immediate Past President of the History Teachers’ Association of Victoria, a Life Member and awardee for Outstanding Service, and currently an elected HTAV Director. She is a Past- Vice-President of the History Teachers’ Association of Australia and formerly its delegate to the Australian Historical Association; currently an elected councillor of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria; and, invited as Victoria’s representative to the council of the Australian National Museum of Education.

Watsonia Library, 4-6 Ibbottson Street, Watsonia

Image: Kangaroo Ground School, 5th and 6th Classes 1890s. Shire of Eltham Pioneers Collection, Yarra Plenty Regional Library in partnership with Eltham District Historical Society