Museums Victoria is an organisation which operates three major state-owned

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

s in Melbourne, Victoria: the

Melbourne Museum The Melbourne Museum is a natural and cultural history museum located in the Carlton Gardens in Melbourne, Australia. Located adjacent to the Royal Exhibition Building, the museum was opened in 2000 as a project of the Government of Victoria, ...

, the Immigration Museum and Scienceworks Museum. It also manages the

Royal Exhibition Building The Royal Exhibition Building is a World Heritage-listed building in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, built in 1879–1880 as part of the international exhibition movement, which presented over 50 exhibitions between 1851 and 1915 around the glo ...

and a storage facility in Melbourne's

City of Moreland The City of Merri-bek is a local government area in metropolitan Melbourne, Australia. It comprises the inner northern suburbs between 4 and 11 kilometres from the Melbourne CBD. The Merri-bek local government area covers , and in June 2018, ...

Immigration Museum, Melbourne - Joy of Museums - External

History

The museum traces its history back to the establishment of the "Museum of Natural and Economic Geology" by the Government of Victoria,

William Blandowski Johann Wilhelm Theodor Ludwig von Blandowski, known as William Blandowski (21 January 1822 – 18 December 1878), was a German explorer, soldier, zoologist and mining engineer of Polish roots, he is most famous for his exploration of the Murray an ...

and others in 1854. The Library, Museums and National Gallery Act 1869 incorporated the Museums with the Public Library and the

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

; but this administrative connection was severed in 1944 when the Public Library, National Gallery and Museums Act came into force, and they became four separate institutions once again. Museums Victoria was founded in its current form under the Australian Museums Act (1983). Currently, Museums Victoria's State Collections holds over 17 million items, including objects relating to

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

and

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. As an ethnic/racial term, it is used to describe the original peoples—inhabitants and diasporas—of any of the three major subregions of O ...

cultures, geology, historical studies, palaeontology, technology & society, and zoology Museums Victoria also contains a library collection that holds some of Australia’s rarest and finest examples of 18th and 19th century scientific monographs and serials. Significant events in the Museum's history include: * 1854 – Founding of the "Museum of Natural and Economic Geology" by

and others; Blandowski oversees the museum * 1856 – Collections moved to the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...

in Parkville by

Frederick McCoy Sir Frederick McCoy (1817 – 13 May 1899), was an Irish palaeontologist, zoologist, and museum administrator, active in Australia. He is noted for founding the Botanic Garden of the University of Melbourne in 1856. Early life McCoy was the so ...

* 1858 – McCoy appointed first "director" of the museum * 1862 – New building opens on University site, museum renamed "National Museum of Victoria" * 1869 – National Museum, embryotic Industrial & Technological (I&T) Museum, National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) and Public Library of Victoria merged into a single body * 1870 – I&T Museum opened on Swanston Street site (behind the Public Library) * 1893 – I&T Museum opens new building on Russell St as part of Library complex * 1899 – National Museum moved to I&T Museum's building, and takes over its mineral collection; rest of I&T Museum put into storage * 1915 – I&T Museum reopens in Library's now surplus Queens Hall, thanks largely to

George Swinburne George Swinburne (3 February 1861 – 4 September 1928) was an Australian engineer, politician and philanthropist. He founded the institution which later became Swinburne University of Technology. Alison Patrick,Swinburne, George (1861–1928), ...

and

John Monash General (Australia), General Sir John Monash, (; 27 June 1865 – 8 October 1931) was an Australian civil engineer and military commander of the First World War. He commanded the 13th Brigade (Australia), 13th Infantry Brigade before the war an ...

* 1927 – National Museum acquired the H. L. White Collection of Australian native bird eggs * 1944 – Museums organisationally re-separated from Library, NGV and each other; all remain in one building * 1945 – I&T Museum renamed Museum of Applied Science (MAS) * 1946 – MAS takes over Melbourne Observatory * 1969 – NGV moves to St Kilda Rd, MAS moves into its old buildings, Library gets back Queens Hall * 1961 – Museum of Applied Science renamed Institute of Applied Science * 1971 – Institute of Applied Science renamed Science Museum of Victoria * 1981 – Museum Station opened, providing train services * 1983 – National Museum of Victoria and Science Museum of Victoria amalgamated to form the Museum of Victoria (NMV) * 1992 – Scienceworks opened in Spotswood * 1997 – Swanston Street campus closed * 1998 – Museum of Victoria renamed Museum Victoria; Immigration and Hellenic Antiquities Museum opened * 2000 –

at Carlton Gardens opened * 2016 – Museum Victoria renamed Museums Victoria

Administration

The present chief executive officer of Museums Victoria is Lynley Crosswell (formerly Marshall), who was previously the head of the

Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-own ...

’s international arm. Crosswell is the first woman to lead the organisation in its history. Former directors include: * 1858 –

* 1899 –

Walter Baldwin Spencer Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer (23 June 1860 – 14 July 1929), commonly referred to as Baldwin Spencer, was a British-Australian evolutionary biologist, anthropologist and ethnologist. He is known for his fieldwork with Aboriginal peoples in ...

* 1928 – James A. Kershaw * 1931 – Daniel James Mahony * 1957 – Charles. W. Brazenor * 1962 – John McNally * 1979 – Barry Wilson * 1984 – Robert Edwards * 1990 – Graham Morris * 1998 –

George F. MacDonald George F. MacDonald (July 4, 1938 - January 22, 2020) was a Canadian anthropologist and museum director who pioneered archaeological and ethnohistorical research on the Tsimshian and Gitksan and was the director of the Canadian Museum of Civilizati ...

* 2002 – Dr J. Patrick Greene

Library

The Museums Victoria Library collection was first established in the 1850s as a working collection for the Museum's curators, and has developed into one of the best collections of natural history books and journals in Australia. The library was located at

Melbourne University The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...

until 1906 when it moved, with the museum, to be co-located with the Public Library. Today, the library collection is located at

and contains 40,000 titles, which includes around 1,000 titles that are considered to be rare due to one or a combination of factors, including: value; scarcity; aesthetic qualities; historic, scientific or institutional significance; fragility; or age. Collection strengths include natural history in the fields of zoology, geology and palaeontology, scientific expedition reports, society and institutional journal titles, Indigenous cultures of Australia and the Pacific, Australian history, technology, colonial and other exhibition catalogues, museum studies, and Museums Victoria publications. Many items from the Museums Victoria Library have been digitised for the Biodiversity Heritage Library as Museums Victoria is the home to the Australian node of this project. The digitisation operation is hosted by Museums Victoria and is nationally funded by the

Atlas of Living Australia The Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) is an online repository of information about Australian plants, animals, and fungi. Development started in 2006. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an organisation sig ...

Significant works

References

External links