Catalogue of Vanished Objects

Every little town has it's local museum, but unfortunately Bendigo, with all it's celebrated gold history, has no museum. Now.
It's not generally realised that Bendigo at one time had a museum of international repute, attracting 20,000 visitors a year in the 1880's.
The museum was at the Bendigo School of Mines, which was founded by the Sandhurst Mechanics Institute in 1872.
It had an incredible geological collection, as well as flora, fauna, and many artefacts of local aboriginal tribes, gold miners, and all sorts of miscellany.
It's exact contents have been a mystery - until now. A microfiche has been discovered of a handwritten catalogue of exhibits, running to hundreds of pages.
Below is an excerpt detailing aboriginal implements found on local properties.
I'll post updates as the catalogue is examined.Now the search is on for the original!

Update on the Wesson Photos

There has been a lot of good work accomplished on identifying the Wesson photos (see post of 13th October).
As well as Judith, Pam and Peter, Linda Barraclough, Lorraine Huddle, Janette Hodgson, and Joan Hunt from RHSV have all pitched in as well.
The identified ones are as below



Cowwarr, Gippsland 1960's

And now,(photo from Janette Hodgson)

Sale, Gippsland

Illabarook, Ballarat district

Smythesdale, Central Victoria


Trentham 1960's

Trentham today (photo courtesy Peter Pereya)

Andrew Carnegie Legacy

Here's and interesting article on the role Andrew carnegie played in the endowment of Institute and public libraries

Speaking of interesting information on the title pages of books (see previous post), this copy of Balthazar, by Balzac indicates that it was recatalogued no less than five times in the space of twenty years. The book is from the Sandhurst Mechanics Institute.

Sidney Myer part of Australian library heritage

At the end of next month I'm doing a presentation for a local service club, about the role of Sidney Myer in Bendigo's history.

His exploits in haberdashery in Bendigo are known (not well known though), and I'll also cover his membership of the Sandhurst Mechanics Institute.

When I prepare the powerpoint, I'll post it to the blog

I've been everywhere, man...

I was recently assessing some items in the collection at Eaglehawk Mechanics Institute in Central Victoria, and came across this book - How Can I Forget? by Jan Tempest - a popular novel from the 1930s.
The interesting thing was the books stamps on the title page:

Roundabout Book Club, Caulfield.
G.R. McGie, Charlton.
Stan Hall, South Yarra.
Taylors Pharmacy, Apollo Bay.
Tresgrove Library, Apollo Bay.
Murchison Mechanics Institute.

All these libraries are long gone, but this book and others like it provide testament to the role these small commercial libraries and Institutes played in the cultural life of our communities.

And that's an amazing journey for a humble romance novel!

Alfred Wesson Mystery Photos

In the 1960s photograper Alfred Wesson photographed all known Mechanics Institutes in Victoria. Many of his splendid photo's can be seen in Pam Baragwanath's book 'If the Walls Could Speak'.

Unfortunately, many of his photos were not labelled, and so remain a tantalising, if mysterious, record of what was then a dissapearing part of the urban and rural landscape.

In an effort to see if we can identify these institutes, MIV has loaded them on to Flickr so you can help us identify them.

If you recognise any of them, email the details, along with the number of thye photo to pbarag@alphalink.com.au or p.thompson@latrobe.edu.au.