Museums Victoria

About

Museums Victoria is an organisation that includes a number of museums and related bodies in Melbourne. These include Melbourne Museum, Immigration Museum, Scienceworks, IMAX Melbourne, a research institute, the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Royal Exhibition Building and a storage facility in Melbourne's City of Merri-bek. As the custodian of more than 15 million collection items, Museums Victoria traces the natural, social and cultural records of the Australasian region. Cultivated over nearly two centuries, this invaluable collection enables nationally and globally significant research. Their natural history collections are especially vital to scientists shaping conservation strategies through research, tracing the impacts of the world’s changing environment on biodiversity. Launched in 2022, Museums Victoria Research Institute addresses some of the biggest and most complex challenges of the era through a lens of change, drawing on multiple knowledge systems and perspectives to enrich understanding. 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. In partnership...

The museum traces its history back to the establishment of the "Museum of Natural and Economic Geology" by the Government of Victoria, William Blandowski 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 ; 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 and Pacific Islander 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 William Blandowski and others; Blandowski oversees the museum

- 1856 – Collections moved to the University of Melbourne in Parkville by Frederick McCoy

- 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 and John Monash

- 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