A special Halloween event - not to be missed!
Join historians Dr Jo Clyne and Dr David Waldron as they recount tales of haunted Melbourne through a highly original blend of historical research and magical stage illusion. 

Following the 5pm MMHN AGM, at 6pm the illustrious Patron of MMHN, Dr. Kevin Fewster, will speak on ‘Charting a course - reflections on 35 years at the helm' during his extraordinary 35 year international career in Maritime Museums including Director of Royal Museums Greenwich (RMG), the world’s largest and most visited maritime museum precinct.  

Closer to ‘home’, Kevin was the founding Director of the South Australian Maritime Museum; Director of the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) and of the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. Kevin will reflect on what are essential elements to consider in a successful maritime museum today and the issues that face such cultural institutions. 

Christina Browning, the RHSV Marketing Officer, leads these forums which each month tackle a different aspect of marketing for historical societies - they tend to concentrate on social media as it is very available and is free to use, however, Christina will tackle any aspect of marketing which you want to raise. Christina will prepare
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An event with Ross is always much anticipated.  Ross McMullin is an award-winning historian and biographer, a renowned storyteller, an entertaining speaker, and a longstanding RHSV member. His multi-biography Farewell, Dear People was awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History, and in his new sequel Life So Full of Promise, Ross has again combined prodigious research and narrative flair in a collection of interwoven family stories about forgotten Australians who had radiant potential.

Join Jillian Hiscock, the RHSV Collections Manager, each month is this informative and easy-going Zoom forum on all aspects of cataloguing collections for historical societies. Jillian has a different topic each month and is happy to be guided by those who attend as to what they would like covered in upcoming clinics. This is an
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This event is organised by the Descendants of Convicts Group Inc (DOCS) together with the RHSV. Conviction Politics is an international digital history project exploring the impact of radicals and rebels transported as political convicts to their place of exile in Australia. Project leader, Associate Professor Tony Moore from Monash University, will take us through the project’s discoveries, media and exhibition, including screening a selection of short documentaries. Tony will explain how Conviction Politics overturns the orthodoxy of how we think about convict Australia. The project reveals how Australia’s first ‘unfree’ workforce resisted exploitation and subordination through inventive solidarity in the face of coercion, while a vanguard of rebels, liberal pamphleteers, industrial protestors and radical agitators changed the political direction of the Australian colonies.

Robert’s lecture will discuss Rio Tinto’s formation and the evolution of its main business activities in Australia. A focus of his lecture will be the initial and ongoing connections of the company with Melbourne and Victoria. After a patchy start in Australia, in 1962, Rio Tinto merged with Consolidated Zinc to form Conzinc Riotinto of Australia (CRA). Under the leadership of legendary mining figure, Sir Maurice Mawby, CRA progressed the development of the aluminium industry in Australia, the establishment of Australia’s export iron ore industry based on the Mount Tom Price deposit in the Pilbara, as well as a major copper operation on the island of Bougainville. The early Australian management saw themselves as contributing to Australia’s post-war development and nation building.

Historian Dr Liz Rushen will take you behind the scenes of our current exhibition, Garryowen's Melbourne which Liz curated. The exhibition grew out of the research Liz had done for her book, Garryowen Unmasked: The Life of Edmund Finn, which was launched earlier this year and was aided by her deep knowledge of the RHSV collection and its treasures.