A Museum for the People

Carolyn Rasmussen

In 1854 the newly appointed government zoologist William Blandowski set off on an expedition to the highlands of central Victoria to collect mineral specimens and to record native wildlife that was already under threat from European occupation. His trip marked the beginnings of the National Museum of Victoria. Within a few years its director, Frederick McCoy, started to amass a collection of international significance even to the extent of purchasing major European collections.

In 1866 Melbourne hosted the first Intercolonial Exhibition. It was such a success that parts were retained as the nucleus of a second museum. The Industrial and Technological Museum, established in 1870, aimed to educate practical colonists and encourage the establishment of local industry; the telegraphy courses, for example, were particularly popular with women seeking employment in the new communications industry.

Operating independently for over a century, the two institutions amalgamated in 1983 to form Museum Victoria, which now encompasses Melbourne Museum, Scienceworks and the Immigration Museum.

Marking almost 150 years since the founding of Melbourne’s first public museum, A Museum for the People maps the triumphs and travails of Victoria’s state museums. The book follows the changes in the institutions’ collecting and exhibition philosophies, and tells a fascinating story of how Australians through their museums have viewed themselves and the world around them.

Carolyn Rasmussen’s narrative is interspersed with 62 short essays by specialist contributors. The book offers insights into the riches of the museums’ collections, ranging from Aboriginal artefacts to immigrants’ keepsakes, from meteorites to fossils, from Australian innovations to rare butterflies and, of course, to the museum’s most popular object, the racehorse Phar Lap.

A Museum for the People is an extraordinary story of collectors, researchers and educators and of the community whose social and natural history they have recorded.