Stories are shaped by the documents that survive to tell them

39 St Edmonds Road, Prahran, VIC 3181 39 St Edmonds Road, Prahran, VIC, Australia

📜 All stories are shaped by the documents that survive to tell them. Over the past 169 years, the Prahran Mechanics’ Institute (founded in 1854) has accumulated a collection that not only covers the history of Victoria but also contains many hidden gems. Come along and discover the treasures of the PMI collection from letters,
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Free

AGM & Speaker Series – Popular Music in History, Heritage & Archives

Murrumbeena Bowls Club 10 Blackwood Street, Carnegie, VIC, Australia

We invite you to the 50th AGM of the Glen Eira Historical Society followed by a talk by Paul Long, Professor in Creative and Cultural Industries at Monash University. Whether in the form of the classical greats, traditional music or popular sounds from jazz, country, big bands to rock and roll, music offers a soundtrack
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$2.00

Approaching the Voice: a four part lecture series

Kathleen Fitzpatrick Theatre

Our friends at U3A Melbourne City have put together a 4 part series, Approaching the Voice, in partnership with the Indigenous Unit at The University of Melbourne.  Later this year you will be asked to vote in the Referendum on a Voice to Parliament and in the coming months you will be bombarded with opinions from all political perspectives.  In this Approaching the Voice series we bring you voices that you won’t regularly hear on radio and television: the voices of people who work continuously in this area and who are willing to share their expertise with us. 

Free

Researching your Ancestors from India and Sri Lanka

Mill Park Library 394 Plenty Road, Mill Park, VIC, Australia

Family Historian Smita Biswas will share tips to find clues about your family roots in India and Sri Lanka, including understanding the history, surnames and official resources. Regarded by some historians as the oldest living civilization on Earth, the Indian tradition dates back to 8,000 BC and has a continuous recorded history of over 2,500
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TOUR: ISLAMIC MUSEUM OF AUSTRALIA

Islamic Museum of Australia 15A Anderson Road, Thornbury, VIC, Australia

Join the RHSV for a curator's tour of the Islamic Museum of Australia, one of Melbourne newest museums. The tour will have special emphasis on the artistic and cultural heritage of Muslims in Australia.
The arrival of Muslim Macassan fisherman from Southern Sulawesi, Indonesia on the Northern Australia coast in the early 1700s marked the beginning of a long-lasting trade relationship between the Macassans and First Nations people. Over time, these communities developed a mutual respect for one another, and shared cultural and religious traditions. Another section of the exhibition pays homage to the Afghan cameleers, highlighting their important contributions to our country’s infrastructure and economy.  

$15

Vandemonians Book Talk

Diamond Valley Library

Join Professor Janet McCalman of the University of Melbourne as she discusses her book Vandemonians: the repressed history of colonial Victoria. This fascinating book examines the stories of Victoria’s convict ancestors to find more than just their criminal activity. Only now are we discovering their stories and Victoria's place in the nation's convict history.

Recurring

Altona Homestead Devonshire Tea

Altona Homestead 128 Queen Street, Altona, Victoria, Australia

The Altona-Laverton Historical Society members and volunteers invite you to drop into the Altona Homestead on the first Sunday of the Month (February to December) to enjoy a serve of our famous Devonshire Tea or Cream Tea or Cornish Tea, anyway you look at them they are delicious.

A Chinese Family History

Mill Park Library 394 Plenty Road, Mill Park, VIC, Australia

Librarian Jack Chan has had a long-time interest in local and family history and has researched his own Chinese ancestry in Australia. He has documented the history of his own family’s Chinese restaurants in Geelong. Join Jack for his trip down memory lane and his tips for researching family history.

George Arden, gentleman drunkard

RHSV Gallery Downstairs 239 A'Beckett St, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

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.

$5.00 – $10.00

Soldiers and Aliens Book Talk

Ivanhoe Library & Cultural Hub 275 Upper Heidleberg Road, Ivanhoe, Select a Country:

Local author June Factor will discuss her book Soldiers and aliens: men in the Australian Army’s Employment Companies during World War II, which details the forgotten history of the remarkable contribution of non-British subjects to Australia in 1939-1945.