Don't miss this opportunity

   
The Royal Historical Society of Victoria's Support Group is holding a seminar titled "Opportunities in information technology for historical societies" in St Arnaud next Saturday.

Topics to be covered include:

'History online : a whole new world'

'Digitise your photographic collection and reap rewards'

'Making new friends : using Facebook to take your group in exciting directions'.

More information is available at the RHSV site - www.historyvictoria.org.au/http://www.historyvictoria.org.au/

The Dimboola Banner

Here is the third and final post on the Wimmera Stories from Culture Victoria - 'The Dimboola Banner, communicating history'.

The first issue of the Dimboola Banner newspaper rolled off the presses on 10th May in 1879. 
It was printed by Henry Barnes and edited by his brother William.
Many proprietors and editors have come and gone since. 
Now more than 130 years on, the Banner is still published weekly, and maintains an office in Dimboola, though the paper is now printed in Warracknabeal.

An Elliott Addressing Machine

The Banner building has been acquired by the Dimboola & District Historical Society, and transformed into a Newspaper & Letterpress Printing Museum. 
The museum owns and operates a diverse collection of vintage presses, all in working condition. 
It preserves a wealth of print relics, including a vast amount of loose type from the long-gone era of handset typography.

See the full story, archival photographs, and video at the Culture Victoria site.

Cold cases

Have been working with a couple of local Historical Societies recently on some collaborative projects.
The Western Victorian Association of Historical Societies is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary, and members were searching for a number of missing copies of their journal the 'Western Historian', fortunately the Library was able to photocopy the relevant editions from our collection.

At the same time a number of people are researching a couple of unsolved murders, and are finding the digitised Australian Historic Newspapers on Trove invaluable.

And the unsolved murders? 

• Firstly 'The Maryvale Murders' occurred in 1874, when Maria Cook with her young daughter Louisa, and an unknown man & dog were killed near the Sheepwash Reserve on Maryvale Station
• Second 'The Gymbowen Mystery', where ex-schoolteacher, and recently married Mary Tierney was poisoned via strychnine in 1905
• Finally a case with a verdict of suicide, but which "reeked with suspicion" according to the coroner - the death of 'the Gypsy Queen' Olga Toohey aka Olga Johan, at the Apsley Racecourse in 1931.

 Anyone with information on these cases is welcome to add their knowledge to the file.