Past Events
December 2018
Putting it Out There: Melbourne in the 1970s
We reflect on and explore the ways in which the life of the city and society were shaped by the changing ideas and actions of its citizens
January 2019
Putting it Out There: Melbourne in the 1970s – Exhibition Closes
We reflect on and explore the ways in which the life of the city and society were shaped by the changing ideas and actions of its citizens. The 70s were a turbulent decade driven by increasing social awareness and cultural diversity. Nothing reflects this better than the slide from the confronting political slogan in the early years of the decade – It’s Time – to the slightly defeated plea, Get Australia Working, by 1977.
Celebrating 35 Years of Operational Women at MFB
Our first major exhibition in 2019 will celebrate 35 years since the Melbourne Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) first opened its doors to operational women and pays tribute to their important contribution to Victoria’s fire and rescue service. The new exhibition features photos, interviews and historical research to capture the stories of just some of the women who have helped shape MFB. Keep an eye out for a curator’s talk. The exhibition runs from Friday January 25th January to Friday 22nd…
Celebrating 35 Years of Operational Women at MFB
Our first major exhibition in 2019 will celebrate 35 years since the Melbourne Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) first opened its doors to operational women and pays tribute to their important contribution to Victoria’s fire and rescue service. The new exhibition features photos, interviews and historical research to capture the stories of just some of the women who have helped shape MFB. The free Curator's Talk is at 12:30pm on Wednesday 13th February - see separate event listing to book tickets.…
February 2019
Curator’s talk: Celebrating 35 years of operational women at MFB
Join us for a lunch-time curator talk and conversation with the team from Way Back When consulting historians and the MFB Director of Culture and Transformation, Dr Corinne Manning, on Wednesday 13 February about the making of this exhibition. Celebrating 35 years of operational women at MFB examines the challenges and achievements of the pioneering women who became the first women to take on operational roles in the MFB. The exhibition also examines the progress made as MFB continues on…
Curator’s Talk
Join us for a lunch-time curator talk and conversation with the team from Way Back When consulting historians and the MFB Director of Culture and Transformation, Dr Corinne Manning, about the making of this exhibition, Celebrating 35 Years of Operational Women in the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Curator’s Talk, Wednesday 13 February at 12:30pm. RHSV Gallery Downstairs.
March 2019
Exhibition launch: Cold War Games
In 1956, an Olympic year, the world was beset with Cold War anxieties. Would the Melbourne Olympic Games be remembered as the “friendly” Games or would they become a victim of the Cold War?
June 2019
Exhibition launch of Isaac Selby: Lecturer, Historian, Assassin!
Emeritus Professor Richard Broome, President Royal Historical Society of Victoria, together with the RHSV Councillors have much pleasure in inviting you to the launch of our exhibition, ISAAC SELBY: LECTURER, HISTORIAN, ASSASSIN! at 5pm, Thursday 13 June, 2019 at the Gallery Downstairs, Royal Historical Society of Victoria, 239 A’Beckett St, Melbourne. The exhibition will be launched by Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Blainey AC FASSA FAHA FAHS FRHSV Curator: Alison Cameron
August 2019
Workshop: Making Archival Boxes
Wed 7 August 11am - 1pm (BOOKED OUT) Wed 11 September 11am - 1pm (BOOKED OUT) As these workshops are small and hands-on they quickly book out. If you haven't managed to book in before they booked out please let us know (office@historyvictoria.org.au) and we'll contact you when we schedule another workshop. David Thompson is holding two workshops on how to make archival boxes. Using archival quality material the boxes are custom…
Trivia-au-go-go
Andrew Lemon is once again going to put us to the test. So, fancy yourself a bit of a history buff? Of course you do! Time to get competitive and pit yourself against all those other history buffs at the RHSV's world-famous Trivia-au-go-go.
Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria: Nature, Culture and Science
Professor Tim Entwisle, Director and Chief Executive, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria will talk about the history of the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, about what makes a modern botanic garden and about his plans for the Melbourne Gardens which centre around the three pillars of culture, nature and science.
September 2019
RHSV Wine-Tasting
Join us for a very different and very convivial history event. Our hosts, David Dunstan and Ron Leslie, know their wine and their history and will be guiding us through both. A talk by David and a tasting of six wines organised by Ron will be book-ended with some mood-lightening Prosecco.
October 2019
New Members welcome and Higinbotham Lecture
An event to welcome New Members and introduce them to the many facets of the RHSV followed by drinks and Geraldine Moore's lecture on George Higinbotham.
November 2019
Celebration of the 90th birthday of Professor John Riddoch Poynter AO
The Royal Historical Society of Victoria is hosting a A SPARKLING MORNING TEA TO CELEBRATE THE 90th BIRTHDAY OF Professor John Riddoch Poynter AO On Friday 8 November 2019 at 10:30am for 11am at the rooms of the RHSV, Ground Floor, 239 A’Beckett Street, Melbourne We invite the family, friends, colleagues and students of Professor Poynter and the members of the RHSV to join us in this celebration. John Poynter in a long, illustrious career has made a major contribution…
BOOK LAUNCH INVITATION to Mallee Country: Land, People, History
The Royal Historical Society of Victoria and Monash University Publishing are delighted to invite you the launch of Mallee Country: Land, People, History By Richard Broome, Charles Fahey, Andrea Gaynor and Katie Holmes Mallee Country will be launched by Tom Griffiths, Emeritus Professor of History, ANU. With a special performance by the celebrated gum leaf player Herb Patten, a Gunai-Kurnai, Yorta Yorta and Wiradjuri man based in Melbourne 4.00 for 4.30pm to 6.00pm RSVP (appreciated) by Wednesday 13 November 2019…
The launch of Melbourne’s Twenty Decades
The RHSV invites our members and friends to attend the launch of our latest book, Melbourne's Twenty Decades. To be launched by Emeritus Laureate Professor Stuart Macintyre AO FAHA FASSA.
December 2019
Launch: Locating Australian Literary Memory
Brigid Magner's Locating Australian Literary Memory explores the cultural meanings suffusing local literary commemorations; orientated around eleven authors – Adam Lindsay Gordon, Joseph Furphy, Henry Handel Richardson, Henry Lawson, A. B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson, Nan Chauncy, Katharine Susannah Prichard, Eleanor Dark, P. L. Travers, Kylie Tennant and David Unaipon.
January 2020
Exhibition launch: The Swamp Vanishes
Before European settlers arrived in the Port Phillip district, a large wetland that lay between the Yarra River and the Moonee Ponds Creek sustained the indigenous people and the cultural traditions of the Kulin nation. While the wetland had initially been described in terms of beauty, within a few short years the swamp was noisome and reviled, and talk began of draining and reclamation. This exhibition traces the how a significant wetland vanished from sight.
February 2020
John Marshall and Bounty Migration to Port Phillip
Emeritus Professor Graeme Davison AO, Chair of the History Council of Victoria, will launch Dr Liz Rushen's book, John Marshall: Shipowner, Lloyd's reformer and emigration agent. After the launch, Dr Rushen will deliver a paper which explores the significant role John Marshall played in the white settlement of the Port Phillip District
Book launch: Gita: Melbourne’s First Yoga School – 65 years of history
Dr Carolyn Rasmussen will be launching Fay Woodhouse's latest book, Gita: Melbourne’s First Yoga School – 65 years of history at the RHSV. This is the first published history of any yoga school in Australia and it provides a context to the development of yoga in Australia.
April 2020
The Queen Victoria Market, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Heritage and Emotion
The Queen Victoria Market Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Heritage and Emotion has been cancelled for the present time due to the evolving situation of COVID-19.
Two linked events were : QVM: Social Value and Preservation. A conversation between Graeme Davison and Charles Sowerwine followed by a presentation by the artists of Isobel Knowles and Van Sowerwine’s short animation, Out In The Open, in the historic sheds of the QVM.
May 2020
Trivia-au-go-go
There has been a temporary cancellation of historical trivia due to the COVID-19 epidemic. Hopefully we will reschedule later in the year and you and all the other history buffs at the RHSV's world-famous Trivia-au-go-go will be even more competitive because of the time you have had to read up on arcane details in preparation for RHSV's world-famous Trivia-au-go-go!
December 2020
Melbourne Observatory: OUTSTANDING UNIVERSAL VALUE
Join the Royal Historical Society of Victoria and Walk in St Kilda Rd & Environs, co-presenters of this event, along with the Astronomical Society of Victoria (ASV) and others, discussing the historical role and outstanding universal value of the magnificent Melbourne Observatory and its potential for UNESCO World Heritage listing nomination.
THE GOOD GIRL SONG PROJECT: The Patrons’ Parlour
Please note that this is not a Zoom event but will be held live, in the Drill Hall in our downstairs gallery which is fully accessible. All COVID19 restrictions and cautions will be observed. The RHSV is thrilled to host an event by our friends, the Good Girl Song Project. For those of you fortunate to attend Liz Rushen's book launch for her book, John Marshall: Shipowner, Lloyd's refromer and emigration agent, earlier this year in the Drill Hall, you…
February 2021
BOOK FAIR
Every year the RHSV hosts a fabulous second-hand history book fair where we sell history books of every imaginable genre. Victorian and Australian history dominate but you'll find biographies, war history, art history, natural history, classics, children's books, political and social history etc
March 2021
Launch of exhibition: Tales from the MacRobertson International Air Races
In October 1934 a great air-race was planned from London to Flemington, Melbourne. From a field of 20 planes just 12 arrived. The winner took a whisker under 3 days; the last entrant arrived in February 1935. The best known tale is of the Dutch plane, Uiver, which made an emergency landing in Albury during a wild storm; the locals used the town’s lights to flash morse code to the plane and then lit the race-track, a make-shift aerodrome, with their car-headlights. Flight was one of the last frontiers and all the tales are unashamedly romantic and full of derring-do.
Tales from the MacRobertson International Air Races
To celebrate Victoria’s centenary in 1934, Macpherson Robertson sponsored a great air race from England to Melbourne. There were originally 20 entrants of which only 12 arrived in Melbourne. The British winning entrants took a whisker under 3 days, the last plane to arrive took some 4 months. The RHSV is mounting an exhibition which takes a close look at the entrants in the races (there were two races run concurrently – a speed race and a handicap race) including the most well-known entrant, the Dutch Uiver.
Vera Deakin in War and Peace
The daughter of Prime Minister Alfred Deakin, Vera Deakin studied music in the Habsburg Empire on the eve of the Great War. Driven by British imperial fervour on her return to Australia, she bypassed the government’s restrictions on women’s participation in the war effort by serving with the fledgling Australian Red Cross. Aged only 23 in 1915, she became the founding secretary of the Australian Red Cross Wounded & Missing Enquiry Bureau in Cairo and later London. Narrowly avoiding replacement by a man, she showed outstanding leadership and was appointed OBE.
LAUNCH OF RHSV WOMEN’S DICTIONARY OF BIOGRAPHY
There is a perception that from its beginnings in 1909, the Royal Historical Society has been the domain of men. Yet from the outset women have played an active role in the Society in many capacities – as members, councillors, fellows, employees, volunteers, patrons, benefactors. The RHSV Women’s Biographical Dictionary has been established to honour the contributions made by women to the Society.
Launch of the Jessie Webb Society
In 1909 Jessie Stobo Watson Webb was not only an original Historical Society of Victoria member (membership No. 30) and the first woman but she also provided rooms in Block Arcade in which our first meeting was held. She was a passionate historian and a true individual who lived by her own rules. She and her friends exemplified the ‘new woman’: intelligent, emancipated women who led rich intellectual lives.
We want to honour Jessie’s legacy, and her impact on the RHSV which is still felt over 100 years later, by naming our bequest society after her. The Jessie Webb Society, like its namesake, is there to make a difference and its members understand the power of a legacy.
CORAGULAC HOUSE: book launch
Author and historian, Jennifer F. O'Donnell, invites RHSV members and friends to celebrate the launch of her latest history, Coragulac House. Drinks and light refreshments will be served in the RHSV's Gallery Downstairs. In the early 1870s, George Pringle Robertson built “Coragulac”, nestled in the shelter of Red Rock near Colac. Built of bluestone quarried on the land and designed by architects Davidson and Henderson, it was an unexceptional mansion with a wide verandah and lacking a tower, so common…
April 2021
AGL Shaw Lecture: Law, Lawyers and La Trobe
Dr Simon Smith AM FRHSV is a leading legal history scholar and he delivers the AGL Shaw Lecture which is co-presented with the C.J. La Trobe Society. The AGL Shaw Lecture, is part of our Distinguished Lecture series and is always a convivial evening.
May 2021
STATUES: PUTTING THEM UP, AND PULLING ‘EM DOWN
There may be a lull in the statue wars now, but that is because the front has broadened – certainly overseas. This oration shows how statues rose with the nineteenth century, and spread with the growth of empires, not least to Australia. The nature of traditional Australian statuary is considered, along with the questions it implicitly raises. (Comparisons are made with America.) Statues, it seems, have become lightning conductors for unresolved tensions, the public culture which once sustained them being increasingly subject to segmentation and fracture.
FRIENDS OF LA TROBE’S COTTAGE ANNUAL LECTURE
C J La Trobe: Jolimont plantsman Guest Speaker: Helen Botham Garden history researcher, author of La Trobe’s Jolimont: a walk round my garden, and coordinator La Trobe’s Cottage management team This presentation will explore how Charles La Trobe’s school days and his travel experiences as a young adult fostered his interest in the natural world which led him to seek out the plants of Port Phillip and to create a beautiful garden at Jolimont. The talk includes a pictorial tour…
June 2021
LA TROBE’S UNIFORM
LA TROBE’S UNIFORM ‘Extravagance, Tradition and Power’ : Charles La Trobe’s Uniform Guest Speaker: Megan Anderson (2019 La Trobe Society Fellow at State Library Victoria) Megan Anderson is Costume Production Assistant at Sovereign Hill, a position which involves researching and producing historically accurate reproduction clothing subsequently used as interpretive and educational tools within the living history museum. This presentation will outline the history of La Trobe’s official uniform, and the actual tailoring of this splendid attire which Megan is in…
Twentieth Century Science, Technology and Engineering
Twentieth Century Science, Technology and Engineering Presented by Laureate Professor R. J. EVANS Engineering Heritage Victoria and the RHSV are, once again, partnering to present some fascinating events which are of interest to anyone interested in history and the history of engineering in its broadest scope. This talk explores the development of key scientific and technological advances over the past 100 years. Building upon the great achievements of the Victorian Era which saw huge advances in fundamental sciences coupled with…
July 2021
History of the Spencer Street Bridge
History of the Spencer Street Bridge Have you ever noticed the Spencer Street Bridge? Arguably nondescript, this dependable 1930 structure has a backstory of political infighting, pioneering technology and an unexpected obstacle pre-dating the bridge by several millennia. City of Melbourne local history librarian Fiona Campbell will lead a visual journey through the design, construction and significance of this enduring bridge. We are delighted to partner again with Engineering Heritage Victoria to present this talk by Fiona Campbell, Local History…
August 2021
Welcome to new RHSV members
Drinks for our new members who have joined in 2020 and 2021: the staff give new members a background briefing on the RHSV and its treasures. So you'll learn about our Collection from Jillian Hiscock, our Collections Manager, and Helen Stitt who looks after our huge images collection and our EO, Rosemary Cameron, will outline all the other membership benefits and how you can make the most of your membership. New members are then invited to stay for that night's lecture.
Portable Buildings in Australia by Miles Lewis
Miles Lewis's presentation will look at why Australia's large collection of portable buildings should be nominated as a group for UNESCO World Heritage Listing. Portable buildings, today referred to as prefabricated, were imported in larger numbers to Australia than to any other part of the world during the nineteenth century. They were made not merely of timber and iron, but of oilcloth, slate, zinc, papier mâché, and ‘portable brick’. nominated as a group for World Heritage Listing.
September 2021
THE BRILLIANT BOY Gideon Haigh talks about Doc Evatt
THE BRILLIANT BOY Gideon Haigh talks about Doc Evatt We are thrilled that Gideon Haigh will talk about his latest book, The Brilliant Boy and the Great Australian Dissent, for the RHSV on Wednesday 29th of September. The event will be chaired by Dr E W Russell. In a quiet Sydney street in 1937, a seven year-old immigrant boy drowned in a ditch that had filled with rain after being left unfenced by council workers. How the law should deal…
October 2021
Welcome to new RHSV members
Drinks for our new members who have joined in 2020 and 2021: the staff give new members a background briefing on the RHSV and its treasures. So you'll learn about our Collection from Jillian Hiscock, our Collections Manager, and Helen Stitt who looks after our huge images collection and our EO, Rosemary Cameron, will outline all the other membership benefits and how you can make the most of your membership. New members are then invited to stay for that night's lecture.
The Women of Little Lon
Sex workers in nineteenth-century Melbourne were judged morally corrupt by the respectable world around them. But theirs was a thriving trade, with links to the police and political leaders of the day, and the leading brothels were usually managed by women. Who were they? What did their daily lives look like? What became of them? Drawing on the findings of recent archaeological excavations, rare archival material and family records, historian Barbara Minchinton brings the fascinating world of Little Lon to life.
March 2022
ADRIFT IN AN ARMCHAIR WITH ROBYN ANNEAR
Robyn Annear has devised 7 historic walks around Melbourne and, in this event, she will be taking us on one of those 7 walks, albeit whilst we are seated comfortably at the RHSV with a glass of wine in hand. The walks showcase the hidden histories we might scurry past every day, the buildings now gone and the extraordinary characters who inhabited them. Robyn, as always, will be charming, erudite and frankly gossipy.
Unprotected: Aboriginal, Convict and Poor women in Colonial Victoria: or how everything bad was made worse by being female
Protection of body and soul in colonial Victoria came in many forms. At the most fundamental level it meant an entitlement, usually by birth or marriage, to an income that sustained you and your children; to a moral status as a woman of virtue that made sexual assault or abuse an egregious version of a crime; to the presence in your household of a capable male to embody that protection. The law provided some protection, but in fact remarkably little…
Launch of Kaleidoscope exhibition
Kaleidoscope is the RHSV's major exhibition in 2022 and it celebrates the women who were crucial in building the organisation from its beginning in 1909. This is biography imagined through the lens of a Kaleidoscope. The viewer is offered fragments of the lives represented here. There is no linear narrative. Each time the kaleidoscope turns, a different story emerges. There are repeating patterns but different emphases and new ways of seeing, new reflections, new refractions. No one story dominates and one story does not fit all.
August 2022
Hugh Anderson, historian
We are delighted that Professor Frank Bongiorno will be delivering the inaugural RHSV Hugh Anderson Lecture, a new addition to our Distinguished Lecturer series. "Hugh Anderson (1927-2017) was a scholar of formidable breadth, productivity and versatility. While it is as a folklorist that he is arguably best known both in Australia and abroad, Anderson’s prolific output also included biography, bibliography, history, school textbooks and documentary collections. His range of interests was very wide: Anderson seemed as comfortable in writing about…
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