By Pam Kiriakidis
Creating a historical and arts precinct to showcase the municipality’s past is at the forefront of Whittlesea Historical Society’s future plans.
The society’s members gathered with historians and residents at Whittlesea’s Whitehaven Receptions last month to discuss the importance of promoting the history of the area.
The seminar highlighted the need for a historical and arts precinct in Whittlesea, with several guest speakers including Royal Historical Society of Victoria representatives, Whittlesea historians and professors.
Whittlesea Historical Society began in 1975 to preserve historic sources of the municipality and the region, however the group has been unable to establish a proper home for its belongings.
Whittlesea Historical Society media representative Matt Christie said collections of artefacts, documents and books were scattered all over the City of Whittlesea – in boxes, homes and even a storage room behind the Christ Church of Whittlesea.
“It should be stored in a climate-controlled room, because of the geographic locations of everything and that’s why things are getting damaged,” Mr Christie said.
“Nobody has a good understanding of the history because it’s not on display anywhere. It’s in a tub under a bed or in tub in the hall, and no one really knows.”
Without a home, Mr Christie said the society was limited in accepting more donations and expanding its services such as hosting tours and talks.
“It limits us. Pretty much anything that we’re going to be involved with, we have to pack up into a tub, take it out to that location,” he said.
“Unfortunately we have to go to them – they can’t come to us because we’re homeless.”
Royal Historical Society of Victoria executive officer Rosemary Cameron spoke about the importance of relationships between historical societies and local governments, as most historical societies were gifted old buildings to display resources.
Mr Christie said the group had a connection with the City of Whittlesea council, however the relationship needed to be strengthened.
“I think we need to put everything that we learned tonight, and all the questions that we’ve got from the audience onto paper and … that needs to be presented to council,” he said.
Royal Historical Society of Victoria president Richard Broome, an emeritus professor in history at La Trobe University, said there was a ‘clear appeal’ to attend the seminar in supporting a Whittlesea precinct.
“If artefacts and documents aren’t looked after, in the future when people say, ‘well what was Whittlesea like?’ they won’t have much material to go on and they won’t be able to find photographs of this place before it was changed,” he said.
“So students at school, if they have to study local history, they won’t have the resources they need to do so and that part of Whittlesea will be lost forever.”
