University of Melbourne Archives

Gippsland

UMA's pre-eminent Gippsland collection are the papers of the Strathfieldsaye Estate, the grazing property on Lake Wellington. This unique collection,measuring 17 metres of records, was donated by the Disher family, who owned the property from 1869 onwards, and documents a century of pastoral settlement in Gippsland. It contains: estate diaries 1867-1927; accounts 1869-1975; general correspondence, 1904-1939; farm manager's correspondence 1939-1947. Disher family correspondence, 1848-1931; diary of JS Disher, 1869-1870; historical notes relating to the property and Gippsland aborigines and the Ramahyuck mission. Harold Clive Disher: correspondence 1917-1975; war diaries 1917, 1940-1944; professional diaries, 1945-1976.

While we have no collections of Gippsland private-sector business (as we do for Western Victoria), we have several collections relating to organised labour in South Gippsland over many decades. The earliest of these are the minutes of meetings of the South Gippsland Fisherman's Union (accession no. 80/147), for 1899 to 1902. The Union was a short-lived attempt to unionise Victorian coastal fishermen; it later became Port Albert Fisherman's Union.

Several collections document the industrial environment at the State Coal Mine at Wonthaggi for a good part of its 60-year history. These are the records of the Australian Coal & Shale Employees Federation (accession no. 75/71), comprising the Powlett River Branch accounts; receipt books; wage books; contracts; financial committee minutes; household coal development fund 1948-1965; correspondence; awards 1920 -1958. Within this collection are also the minutes of the Miners' Federation, Victorian District, 1921-1960 (incomplete); Miners' Federation, Wonthaggi Vigilance Committee correspondence 1969 -1970.

Further records of the Wonthaggi Vigilance Committee (a committee established during 1956 in response to local fears about the possible closure of the State Coal Mine) include minutes and correspondence for 1956-1958. (Accession no. 83/158)

Bill Rankine was a unionist and amateur historian who collected material relating to politics and social life in Wonthaggi. His papers (accession no. 73/82), contain files on the Wonthaggi Branch of the Miners' Federation, the Wonthaggi Co-operative Society, the Communist Party of Australia, the Australian Labor Party, the peace movement, Wonthaggi local government and material on Wonthaggi hospital.

The papers of labour lawyer AT Brodney hold material on the Royal Commission into the State Coal Mine during 1923-1937. (Accession no. 72/48)

Photographs of South Gippsland coal-mining are held in the collection of Joe and Lyn Chambers and include 36 black-and-white prints all taken in 1910 and mainly of the Powlett River coalfields, miners, buildings, processes, including the State Coal Mine. (Accession no. 98/63)

D. Heslop's collection holds sixty photographs depicting coal mining and settlement at Wonthaggi, and other nearby settlements from 1890 to 1915. (Accession no. 80/74)

The activities of the Union Theatre in Wonthaggi are recorded in three separate collections: the Bill Rankine papers, in the Australian Coal & Shale Employees Federation material as above, and also depicted in four photographs in accession no. 82/85.

Completing the documentation of the coal-mining community at Wonthaggi is an oral history project undertaken in 1978 with members of the Wonthaggi Women's Auxiliary, that includes taped interviews with Meg Foster, Elsie Hamilton, Meg Currie, Nancy & Bill Stirton, Mavis McLeod, Jessie Hanson, Agnes Doig (with comments by Wattie Doig). (Accession no. 79/116)

The papers of Robert Maclellan, the Liberal MLA for Pakenham from 1992-2002, for Berwick from 1976-1992 and Gippsland West, 1970-76, have been acquired in four large accessions that hold the following:

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