Up, up, and away

 Technically not local, but it is the nearest International Airport - Melbourne Airport, or more commonly known as Tullamarine Airport. Probably to distinguish it from the other then major Melbourne airport - Essendon.

This first image it from the Victorian Yearbook for 1971.

It shows a brand new Tulla with a the original 3 terminals (Ansett to the left, International in the middle and TAA on the right) and a minimum of parking which looks to be more than sufficient judging by the number of parked cars.

In 1959, during the Menzies era, the Commonwealth purchased 13,000 acres in the then-rural Tullamarine. Tulla was opened on 1st July 1970 by then Prime Minister John Grey Gorton.

Move forward to 2020, and a Google Maps image of the site (slightly different angle).

The growth in air travel is apparent - now with 4 major terminals hosting great long sky bridges, and also the parking headache - multi-storey carparks and the long-term parks stretching back towards the city - we have come a long way.

Michael's Hell Ship

For more than a century and a half, a grim tale has passed down through Michael Veitch's family: the story of the “Ticonderoga”, a clipper ship that sailed on a calamitous voyage from Liverpool for Victoria in August 1852.Crammed on board in cramped, overcrowded conditions, often without sanitary facilities, fresh water and barely enough food, were 800 poor but hopeful emigrants- mostly Scottish victims of the Clearances and the potato famine. A better life, they believed, awaited them in Australia.

Three months later, a ghost ship struggled into Port Phillip Bay flying the dreaded yellow flag of contagion. On her horrific three-month long nightmare voyage, deadly typhus had erupted, killing a quarter (nearly 200) of Ticonderoga's passengers and leaving many more desperately ill. Sharks, it was said, had followed her passage as the victims were buried at sea. 

The plague-stricken sailing ship struck panic in Melbourne. Forbidden to dock at the gold-boom town, the ship was directed to a lonely beach on the far tip of the Mornington Peninsula, a place now called Ticonderoga Bay. 

The Quarantine Station administrative building

James William Henry Veitch was the ship's assistant surgeon, on his first appointment (and last) at sea. Among the volunteers who helped him tend to the sick and dying was a young woman from the island of Mull, Annie Morrison. What happened between them on that terrible voyage is a testament to human resilience, and to love.

Michael Veitch is their great-great-grandson, and the book “Hell Ship” is his brilliantly researched narrative of one of the biggest stories of its day, now all but forgotten. Broader than his own family's story, it brings to life the hardships and horrors endured by those who came by sea to seek a new life in Australia.

But there’s more...this story was repeatedly told to Michael all his young life by his own father, he has carried it and explored it all these years. 

You can hear the story directly from Michael in a performance at the Horsham Town Hall. Told with pieces of music from the era performed by Michael’s son, there will be the web of four generations of Veitch on stage. This is truly a family story.

Michael captures the human aspects in what is essentially a dark story. Even in a dying ship’s hull there is always some small thing that a wry sense of humour can find to lift us out of the putrid desolation that marks our history.

Michael Veitch’s story of the Ticonderoga delves into our Australian emigrant history, explores the themes of unimaginable courage, of family, and shines the light on a monumental, but almost forgotten, human story. This one, his own.

Upon the arrival of the “Ticonderoga” on the 22nd December 1852, a quarantine station was hastily erected at this site.  Sadly, a cemetery was also immediately required as of the 170 people that died due to Typhus Fever that engulfed the ship, 70 people were to perish upon their arrival to Port Phillip.

Heaton’s Monument marks the location of the original cemetery established at the quarantine station on Point Nepean. The cemetery was relocated inland around 1854, but the neo-Egyptian style sandstone memorial to the Ticonderoga Tragedy and to all those who endured the lengthy passage in migrant transport ships to Australia remains. 

George Heaton was the Supervisor responsible for building much of the Quarantine Station. It is believed that he built the monument at great expense to himself, in memory of the migrants who died.

DATE: 8th September 2018

TIME: 8pm

VENUE: Horsham Town Hall Theatre

DURATION: 70 minutes (no interval)

PRICE: $40 – Adult, $35 – Concession, $30 - 2018 Member, $25 - 2018 Member Concession.

Contact the Box Office on (03) 5382 9555.

Historians and digital

Are you doing anything important on 16th November?
How about attending -
'Bread & stones: historians using & preserving digital sources'

This Making Public Histories seminar brings together experts to discuss how the prevalence of electronic sources of information is changing the ways that historians work.

Presentations and discussion will explore the subject of discovering and using electronic data, and preserving it for further use.

The session will be chaired by PROV's Owen O'Neil, and the Speakers are:

Michael Jones from the University of Melbourne and Museum Victoria

Sarah Slade of the State Library of Victoria

Daniel Wilksch from Public Record Office Victoria

This seminar is part of the ongoing Making Public Histories series exploring public history within the framework of topical issues in Australia. It is a joint initiative between State Library Victoria, the History Council of Victoria and Monash University.

'Bread & stones' is on 6pm - 7:30 pm Wednesday 16th November, in the Village Roadshow Theatrette room at the State Library in Melbourne.
The event is free, but bookings are essential. You can register/book online
For more details phone: 03 8664 7099 or email: inquiries@slv.vic.gov.au

For the love of books

Melbourne Rare Book Week – For the love of books

Melbourne Rare Book Week commenced in 2012 as a partnership between ANZAAB, the University of Melbourne and 8 other literary institutions. In 2015, over 44 free events were held at libraries, literary and historical societies and bookshops throughout Melbourne, attracting local, national and international visitors. Melbourne Rare Book Week is now well established in the City of Melbourne's event calendar. It is a major attraction for book collectors, librarians and all who have a love of words, print on paper and literary heritage.

Just some of the must-go-to events this year are:

“Preservation of photographs, books and paper-based items” presented by The Genealogical Society of Victoria with speaker - Debra Parry, a qualified conservator, will share her expert knowledge about the preservation of photographs, books and paper-based items. She is well qualified to discuss the topic, having worked as a conservator for the National Archives where she carried out a range of preservation and conservation treatments including the repair of documents, maps and plans, as well as photographs, albums, books and ledgers. She has also worked for Heritage Victoria and now manages her own business, Melbourne Conservation Services. There are 2 sessions available Thursday 14^th or Thursday 21^st, both at 12 noon to 1pm.

“Rare book discovery day” presented by Museum Victoria. Bring along your books, maps and prints to this Antiques Roadshow-style event for discussion and informal appraisals from a panel of leading antiquarian booksellers. On Saturday 16th July 10am – 1pm

And if you’re really quick, get down the street to attend “A walk on the mean streets” presented by the Melbourne Library Service. This walk will be hosted by Dr. Lucy Sussex, an expert on Australian detective fiction. It will visit some of the sites of Melbourne featured in the books of Fergus Hume, the author of The Mystery of a Hansom Cab. Lucy Sussex is the author of 'Blockbuster', which tells the stories of The Mystery of a Hansom Cab and of Fergus Hume, who lived in Melbourne from 1885 to 1888. Hume wrote three mysteries that were set in and around Melbourne, before he returned the UK in mid 1888, (to the London of Jack the Ripper!). The walk will be illustrated by readings of extracts from the three Australian works of Fergus Hume. The walk will start at Scots' Church at the corner of Collins Street and Russell Street at 1pm. and will end in George Street, East Melbourne at around 3.30pm. Saturday 16th July 1pm – 3:30pm.

“The Tyranny of distance – 50 years” presented by Monash University Library. Professor Geoffrey Blainey has been described as the "most prolific, wide-ranging, inventive, and, in the 1980s and 1990s, most controversial of Australia's living historians". It seems extraordinary that it is 50 years since the publication of his most well-known book The Tyranny of Distance by Sun Books in 1966. This was itself an important landmark in Australian publishing, as it was unusual at the time for a serious study of history to be first published as a local Australian paperback by a relatively new and unknown publishing house. This talk is presented by another distinguished Australian academic historian, Emeritus Professor Graeme Davison, who will share his knowledge of the career and impact of Professor Geoffrey Blainey in general and The Tyranny of Distance in particular. On Tuesday 19th July 3:30pm – 4:30pm.

All the events are free, but booking is essential. More events and further details are available at the website.

The woman and the farm

If you’re in Melbourne on Wednesday 8^th June you might want to check out this talk - ‘Securing the History of Australian Farming Women’ at Museum Victoria.

Women in Australia play a vital role in agriculture and farming, contributing over 49% of the total value of the output of farming communities. The woman’s contribution to farming has largely been ignored, unrecognised and rendered invisible. Historically, farming women have been excluded from censuses and official documentation and stereotyped as ‘housewives’, ‘helpmates’ or ‘domestics’ despite their significant contributions to the farm economy.

Museum Victoria’s ‘Invisible Farmer Project’ is an ambitious project that seeks to redress the ongoing invisibility of Australian farm women in cultural, historical and contemporary narratives. The Project explores and documents of the contributions of women to agricultural production.

‘Securing the History of Australian Farming Women’ speakers - Catherine Forge and Liza Dale-Hallett will highlight the importance of Australian farm women’s history and provide an overview of the key issues that the ‘Invisible Farmer Project’ aims to address. Catherine Forge will share excerpts from the oral history interviews that she conducted with key women involved in the Rural Women’s Movement in Australia.

Catherine Forge was Curator of the 'Invisible Farmer Project' in 2015 and wrote her thesis on the 'Victorian Women on Farms Gathering Collection' in 2007. She has since worked as a Research Associate on the Collection as well as conducting oral history interviews with rural women across Victoria.

Liza Dale-Hallett is Senior Curator of Sustainable Futures at Museum Victoria. She has been involved in preserving the history of farming women since the 1980s and was instrumental in establishing the 'Victorian Women on Farms Gathering Collection' at Museum Victoria in the early 2000s.

‘Securing the History of Australian Farming Women’ is in the Theatre at Melbourne Museum from 1-2pm. Entry is free, but booking to reserve a seat at rsvphumanities@museum.vic.gov.au is necessary.

App for the Lost

 The National Trust's webpage begins with "Imagine if you could stand at the corner of Bourke and Exhibition Streets and see the Southern Cross Hotel as it was when the Beatles stayed there" then it goes on to tell you how you can view the hotel on 'Lost! 100 lost buildings of Melbourne' the Trust's iPhone app.
 In a period of mass destruction, from the 1950s to the early 1970s, historic buildings in Melbourne's CBD were being bulldozed at an appalling rate. At the time, such buildings were seen as useless relics, developers were going to erect better, more modern, utilitarian buildings in their place. But times change, and now we look back with regret at some of those decisions.
 Lost is a dynamic app that uses augmented reality to allow users a 3D understanding of some of Melbourne's most amazing lost and hidden heritage buildings. The interactive app enables users to "ghost" - visually overlay buildings from the past onto the present. At all 100 sites, the app superimposes images of demolished buildings over what is now at the location, by augmenting the iPhone's existing camera function. The app has links to Facebook and Twitter so users can upload their images, stories or comments about the sites.
 A history, photos and stories of these often long-demolished buildings is available. You can also view 80 'unlocked' buildings from any location - but uniquely, when you are within metres of a further 20 buildings you can access their 'locked' files.

The Fire Brigade Tower - then and now

 The app gives users an insight into buildings such as the Victorian tea-rooms in the Fitzroy Gardens, the Fish Markets and the Eastern Market (which was replaced by the Southern Cross Hotel).
The Fire Brigade Tower at the rear of 447 Little Bourke Street, built in 1882, was a 6-storey lookout tower of Melbourne's first fire station. It had an uninterrupted view of the whole of the city. The United Insurance Companies' fire brigade building was then used by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade until 1918.
In 1959 the National Trust selected it as one of Victoria's most significant buildings, despite this the unused building was demolished in 1961, to make way for a carpark for the London Assurance Company - what an improvement.

The Buck's Head Hotel development

The Buck's Head Hotel at 290 Little Lonsdale Street opened on 1st July 1848. The large building was built of brick and bluestone, it contained the bar, dining room, 4 sitting rooms, 6 guest bedrooms, and accommodation for the landlord and his family. The Hotel took up the corner of Sutherland Street (the narrow lane on the left) and Little Lonsdale Street.
After serving drinks for 103 years, the hotel lost its liquor licence and was auctioned in 1951. In 2011 the site was the subject of an archaeological dig, before construction began on a new multi-storey office tower.


The app includes eight buildings still standing, that the Trust deems under threat, including the Queen Victoria Market, the Celtic Club in Queen Street, the Le Louvre boutique, the art deco Palace Theatre in Bourke Street, and the Women's Venereal Disease Clinic.

The VD Clinic cowering beneath the towering Victoria University

 The Women's Venereal Disease Clinic, is one of the "Heritage at Risk" buildings. The former home of the clinic was constructed in 1919 at the rear of the Board of Health offices in response to the rapid increase in diagnoses following the end of the Great War. In 2011 the Melbourne City Council nominated the building for heritage protection, but the Planning Minister did not grant the request, and in April 2012 the Victoria University (the owner) proposed to demolish the clinic and neighbouring former tuberculosis clinic to erect a 32 storey high-rise.

Apparently not at risk - The Department of Forensic Medicine building, next-door to the Clinic

 The Southern Cross Hotel was opened, live on TV, by then Prime Minister Bob Menzies in August 1962. Situated on Exhibition Street between Bourke and Little Collins Streets, it replaced the grand but by then virtually unused Eastern Market. Built in the 'Featurist' style, the Southern Cross hosted Frank Sinatra, and the Beatles in 1964, as well as the Logies and Brownlow Medal count for years (before Crown was invented). The Hotel closed in 1995, a bid to have it listed by Heritage Victoria failed, and it was demolished in 2003 to make way for an office complex.

The Beatles at the Southern Cross from Picture Australia

 Currently the app is compatible with the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, and Lost is free to download. Discover hidden and lost buildings you may not have been aware of at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lost!/id511203200?mt=8

Ned's burial wish

The Victorian Government recently announced that the remains of the bushranger Ned Kelly will be released to members of his family for burial.

This decision is in accordance with Kelly’s wishes which was recorded in a letter held in the PROV Collection (PROV holds the world’s largest accumulation of original records related to the Kelly Gang).
The letter, dated 10 November 1880, is held along with other letters Kelly wrote via dictation whilst in jail awaiting execution. Kelly was unable to write any of the letters himself owing to the injuries he had received at the Glenrowan Siege, and so signed them with his mark - an ‘X’. The letter is part of PROVs online Kelly Historical Collection, which are in turn effectively pages within the Kelly Capital Case file.
This file was created at the time by the Crown Law Department to document the process that occurred after his trial to determine whether a recommendation should be put to the Governor as to whether the mandatory death sentence should be commuted to a lesser one. (This was the case for all prisoners sentenced to death for capital offences).
Kelly was executed by hanging at the Old Melbourne Gaol 11th November 1880, and buried there.

Old Melbourne Gaol

 Following the closure of the Old Melbourne Gaol,in 1929 work was undertaken to allow extensions to the Working Men’s College (now RMIT) in the former prison yard (the initials of each executed inmate and the date of his or her execution were carved into the wall adjacent to the burial plot, some of these bluestone blocks are now in the Beaumaris breakwater). The remains of all executed inmates (approximately 30 individuals) that could be located were exhumed, transferred to Pentridge Prison, and re-interred in mass graves. In 1937, four additional coffins were unearthed in a different area, and taken to Pentridge for reburial.

The initial process of exhumation, re-internment was disorganised and over time the actual grave sites became confused, and after Pentridge closed and redeveloped into a housing estate, workers uncovered a mass graves site. Heritage Victoria were called in to investigate and identify the burial locations of the Old Melbourne Gaol  inmates, and also those of the ten executed Pentridge prisoners. In 2008-09 they discovered the individual plots of the Pentridge prisoners, and 3 mass graves of the Old Melbourne Gaol inmates.

Forensic profiling and analysis was undertakrn to identify the remains. This work identified one of the skeletons as Ned Kelly's, which his family descendants will re-bury in Kelly Country.

Living in the Treasury

The scullery

In this the third and final posting regarding the Old Treasuy building, we look at the Maynard family who actually lived in the building from 1916 to 1928, and the National Archives/Public Records Office Victoria who provide a number of displays in the building which is free to visit from 10am to 4pm on Wednesdays and Sundays.

LUX wood stove

 Maynard was the building's superintendent/caretaker, in charge of security and maintenance. His wife Emma prepared the Governor's morning & afternoon teas. John, Emma and their 8 children grew up in the Treasury. They lived downstairs in 5 rooms, which within the bluestone walls is cool in summer, but cold in winter (and believe me & in spring too). After the official business was conducted the children had the run of the building, however they were isolated from other families living alone on the top of the hill.

The Public Records Office has a number of permanent displays in different rooms - Indigenous Victorians - early interactions with the government, including the Peppers at Ebenezer; Early Melbourne - settlement by Batman & Fawkner, and the Burke & Wills expedition; Ned Kelly - original documents, extracts from "The story of the Kelly Gang" film and the Kelly family tree; Crime & criminals - gangsters Squizzy Taylor, and female prisoner mug shots;   Victorians at work & on holiday - posters and photographs from the 1930-1950s; Victorian buildings - a range of architectural plans of public buildings; and Victorian democracy -how the gold miners helped shape Victoria's government.

Strutt sketch of the Expedition on the march

Built on Gold

The Old Treasury Building was erected as a storage facility for the Victorian Gold Rush.

While the upstairs rooms are grandly proportioned and furnished, they sit upon a number of gold vaults.

Its construction was funded by massive government revenues flowing from the central Victorian goldfields. Its purpose was two-fold to provide government offices, and to house the colony's stock of gold bullion.

You can tour the vaults which are now set up with multimedia displays on different themes tracing the journey of the gold from the diggings and its impact on the state - the Gold Escorts, shipping & trade, colonial bureaucracy, the gold rush in Melbourne, and the gold market, etc.

Old Treasury building

Have you ever looked up Collins Street in Melbourne to the grand buildings at the top at Spring Street? Next to Parliament House is the Old Treasury building, regarded as one of the finest nineteenth century buildings in Australia.

Looking south, the nearly completed Treasury building, with the Yarra River in the background & Macarthur Street in the foreground

The building occupies a unique position in the history of Melbourne. Its origins lie in the 1850s Victorian Gold Rush, which brought great wealth to Melbourne, and its construction between 1858 and 1862 was symbolic of the city's rapid development. The Old Treasury was designed by 19-year-old architect J.J. Clark. His design was in the Renaissance Revival style. The elegantly proportioned three-storey rectangular building is 200 feet across, 55 feet deep and 70 feet tall, with three main entrances to the ground floor, a central section portico with upper story colonnaded arcade and elaborately detailed window pilasters and pediments.

The floor above the barrel-vaulted basement is a metre thick -

The exterior of the building is finished in Bacchus Marsh sandstone, its bluestone foundations were mined from Bald Hills Quarry and As well as being built to store the colony's gold, the Treasury Building provided offices for the leaders of the young colony, including the Governor, the Premier (at the time called Chief Secretary), the Treasurer and the Auditor General.


A leading public building, located in a prominent position with open space around it, the Treasury has been the focus for celebrations and major public events. The Victorian Governor continues to meet there with the Executive Council to sign off legislation in the magnificent first floor Executive Council Chamber.
But sometimes they'll let ordinary people in!

Entry is free between 10am -4pm on Wednesdays and Sundays.