Old Treasury Building

Learning about history can teach us what not to do, but it can also inspire us to create positive change for the future.

Our museum collection includes original signs from the 2019 School Strike 4 Climate, generously donated by students after the protest ended. Australian school students first went on strike in 2018 to protest government inaction on climate change.

Following in a long tradition of protest banners, these signs show young people fighting for a better future, refusing to let themselves be silenced just because they are too young to vote.

The creativity and originality these students put into their signs give us hope that the next generation are ready to tackle the challenges of the modern world.

History museums have a bad rep for being boring, stuffy places. But we think there’s no reason you can’t have a bit of fun when you learn the stories of the past.

One of the most popular attractions in our basement gold vaults are our historical figure cutouts. We love watching visitors have fun pretending to be gold miners or a group of slightly creepy Victorian children.

Perhaps you’ve visited our smallest exhibition, dedicated to the loo! Toilet Tales tells the story of one of our most eccentric and elaborate collection items: the Governor’s lavatory. This exhibition, installed in the cupboard where the original toilet used to sit, shows history is not all dates and boring facts.

Looking for something do to this long weekend? The museum is OPEN Sunday and Monday!

Running for 242 km, Melbourne’s iconic Yarra River (Birrarung) has always been an important resource for the people living next to it. Before colonisation, Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung peoples spent their summers in the river’s extensive wetlands, which provided up to 60% of their diet as well as clothing and medicine.

After Europeans arrived in the early 1800s, the colonists changed the river dramatically. Wharves and factories replaced the wetlands, causing erosion and pollution.

This erosion exacerbated existing flooding problems. In 1863, Melbourne recorded nearly 140mm of rain across 5 days. Where 40 years earlier this would have simply spread across the wetlands, it now flooded homes and businesses. Thirty years later, approximately 3000 people were made homeless by the 1891 ‘Great Flood’.

To prevent further flooding, the city undertook major engineering projects to ‘tame the river’. The Yarra was widened, deepened, and shortened. Most significantly, it was straightened when a new course was dug, removing Fisherman’s Bend, to provide easier access for ships. In 1883, the natural Yarra was altered once again, explosively, when the Yarra Falls were demolished to make way for the Queens Bridge.

Today, the river remains an important resource and gathering place for Melburnians but it still faces many challenges from the years of urban development and landscape alteration. In 2017, the Victorian Government passed the landmark Yarra River Protection (Wilip-gin Birrarung murron) Act 2017, the first legislation in Australia to be co-titled in a First Nations language and the first to identify a large river as a single “living and integrated natural entity” requiring protection.

The Rare Book Week program is LIVE! We're so excited to be presenting 'Making Public Histories: Why Republics Die' with History Council of Victoria Inc. and Monash University.

Rare Books Melbourne – FOR THE LOVE OF BOOKS Melbourne Rare Book Week 2025 November 30, 2024May 30, 2025 Chris Browne Announcement Bookings are now open. Rare Books Melbourne is pleased to announce the dates for Melbourne Rare Book Week 2025. MRBW2025 will run from 24th July to 2nd August 2025, with the ANZAAB Melbourne Rare Book Fair running....

As a small museum, the Old Treasury Building only has a few items in our own collection. One of the most beautiful are our 1920s flapper dresses – imagine the stories these could tell!

Dresses like this reflected a new freedom in women’s clothing. Gone were the restrictive dresses of the past, whose cinched waists and long hems made movement difficult. Flapper dresses invited women to express themselves with greater freedom and ease.

Look closely at the beautiful, beaded hem of this dress and think of the nights it spent swinging away as its wearer danced an energetic Charleston, spilling champagne onto a crowded dancefloor. Perhaps the dress was worn again by a daughter or granddaughter attending a fancy-dress.

You can see this dress yourself in our 'Making Modern Melbourne' exhibition!

Museums tell stories of not only conflict but also the constant struggle for peace. Nearly all our exhibitions at the Old Treasury Building share stories of the activists and everyday Australians who have campaigned for a more peaceful world. In the 1960s, activists protested for nuclear disarmament, an end to the Vietnam War and Australian involvement, Aboriginal rights, and gender equality.

Our Swinging 60s exhibition includes a range of protest ephemera, showing the variety of ways people have supported peace, with the introduction of protest car bumper stickers and the extensive use of easy to produce protest badges.

One of the more unusual protest items in our exhibition is the ‘peace aprons’ from the Union of Australian Women. Traditional protest banners could easily be seized by police, so women started making aprons with campaign slogans on them to wear to protests. Inspired by the Housewives Association, the logic was that police would be reluctant to seize clothing as this could be seen as manhandling a respectable woman!

Making Public Histories: Australian Legacies of British Slavery Recent research has revealed the myriad connections – encompassing ...

⏰ Registrations are still open for our Making Public Histories webinar this Thursday 14 May, 5pm!

With professors Jane Lydon and Zoe Laidlaw and chaired by Kate Rivington, we will be exploring Australian Legacies of British Slavery, revealing the myriad connections – encompassing people, capital, labour practices and ideologies – between Australia’s colonisation and chattel slavery in the Atlantic World.

The webinar is entirely free and co-presented with Old Treasury Building & Monash University Publishing!

✍ Register: https://www.historycouncilvic.org.au/mph_2026_may_slavery

Attention teachers and parents. The 2026 Parliament Prize is now open for entries from students in Grade 5 to Year 12: vicparl.news/parlprize

We’re asking students from across Victoria to share what they would say to parliament if they were an MP. This is a chance for students to talk about the issues that are important to them and their community.