Activities

Gary Presland, historian and authority on Aboriginal history, will share his insights into the life and times of the Aboriginal peoples in our local area.

Presenter(s) Rosie Smith Start Wednesday 17 Feb 2016 - 10:30am Finish Wednesday, 17 February 2016 - 12:00pm Location Fitzroy Gardens Entry fee Members free; non-members $5.00 Join us on a walk around the Fitzroy Gardens as our leader, Rosie Smith, tells us some of the many storie...

Presenter(s) Richard Broome Start Wednesday 16 Aug 2017 - 8:00pm Finish Wednesday, 16 August 2017 - 10:00pm Location Clarendon Terrace, 210 Clarendon Street, East Melbourne Entry fee Members free; non-members $5.00 Richard Broome, emeritus professor Department of History at La Tr...

Prof. Miles Lewis, is an architectural historian, and Professor in the Faculty of Architecture, Building & Planning at the University of Melbourne. He is the author of many books and countless papers on architectural history, heritage protection and urban planning. He is recognis...

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Roy Morgan - Founder of Roy Morgan Research

1942 Roy Morgan Gallup PollOn 5 July 1942 the Roy Morgan "Gallup Poll" reported that "the employment of women conductors on trams and buses is strongly approved throughout Australia." Recent polling finds that Australians are still of the same mind.

Fiona Campbell, local history librarian at East Melbourne Library, has the knack of wringing juice out of the driest of subjects. In this talk she will take on the Sands and McDougall Post Office Directories. These massive volumes were produced from 1857 to 1974 and are an invalu...

Fiona will be known to most of us as the peerless local history librarian stationed at our East Melbourne Library. She has made a detailed study of the Spencer Street Bridge and discovered a fascinating story. Her infectious enthusiasm for her subject is sure to make this a rivet...

Conservation architect, Arthur Andronas, has worked on the restoration and upgrading of St Patrick's Cathedral and has extensive knowledge of its history and architecture.

Rosemarie will take us on a walk demonstrating the changes in Melbourne's domestic architecture over 100 years as represented in East Melbourne. The walk will start at Bishopscourt, built between 1849 and 1853, and move forward. But it will not be a talk simply about architecture...

In her Royal Historical Society of Victoria award-winning book The Art of Being Melbourne, Maree Coote creates a clever history of Melbourne as seen through artworks of Melbourne's urban landscape. Art meets History as she tracks the Melbourne zeitgeist through 20 decades of art...

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The Fight to Legalise Abortion

Your body, your life, your choices[This talk has been rescheduled as shown above.] Dr. Jo Wainer will talk about the history of the fight to decriminalise abortion.

Carol Rosenhain’s moving book describes the extraordinary work of James Lean. During WW1 it was his role in Base Records to receive and answer the correspondence of distressed families seeking news of missing loved ones, and it was he who personally wrote a condolence letter to t...

In 2014, Major-General Mike O’Brien gave us a list of men with a connection to East Melbourne who had volunteered for the 1st World War.

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The Mercy Hospital in East Melbourne

Helen Monkivitch started her association with the Mercy Hospital in 1965 as a religious sister at Mercy Private. She is now the Director of Mercy Health and Aged Care. She has a thorough knowledge of the hospital's history, its work, and of the life and people within it.

Peter Andrew Charles O’Farrell is but a dot in the history annals of East Melbourne. At some point in the mid-nineteenth century, he owned two plots of land on Powlett Street. A property speculator and a solicitor of Victoria’s Supreme Court, O’Farrell was a volatile and obstrepe...

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The Origins of Australian Rules Football

First football match 1858150 years ago the first game of football was played in Yarra Park between teams from Scotch College and Melbourne Grammar. Professor Blainey will examine the origins of our local game.

Lawyer Malcolm Howell will put the facts before us in the case of the alleged murder in 1911 of Mary Margaret Davies by Dr Samuel Peacock as the result of an illegal operation. Dr Peacock's private hospital was at 62 Wellington Parade, East Melbourne. Mary's body was never found...

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The Vanishing Sculptures

A visitor walking through the Fitzroy Gardens in the nineteenth century would have found their lush plantings highlighted with statues in the classical and neo-classical style. Now these have disappeared. Why? What happened to them? Terence Lane, former Senior Curator, Australian...

Dr Graeme Williams OAM has been researching the Melbourne art scene since 1851 through the prism of the Victorian Artists’ Society, 430 Albert Street, East Melbourne. He will share with us his journey through this vibrant slice of Melbourne’s history.

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The new Parliament Gardens - a walk

This will be a guided walk conducted by one of the regular specialist guides. The gardens promise to be full of interest as we follow a meandering path from the rooftop garden of wildflowers down to the sunken garden of shade loving exotics. The walk will take about an hour.

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Tom Wills

Tom Wills statue in Yarra ParkTom Wills, a star cricketer, is credited with creating the game of Australian Rules Football to keep members of the cricket team fit over the winter months. But there was much more to his life than just sport. Greg de Moore will tell us his extraordi...

Breweries once dotted many of Melbourne's inner suburbs including East Melbourne. Our brewery has now been converted to apartments but a visit to the one in Abbotsford will give us a glimpse of what used to happen in Victoria Parade. The tour will end with tastings.

The Melbourne Cricket Club Library has recently received some new material, including photos, dating to the Second World War when US military forces were based at the MCG. Alf Batchelder will present an illustrated talk.