Museum Victoria

Museum Victoria is an organisation which operates three major state-owned museums in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; these are: the Melbourne Museum, the Immigration Museum and Scienceworks. It also manages the Royal Exhibition Building and a storage facility in Melbourne's City of Moreland.

Museum Victoria is the caretaker of the body of Phar Lap, Australia's most famous race horse. Phar Lap's skeleton is housed at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and his heart is kept at the National Museum of Australia.

History

The museum traces its history back to the establishment of the National Museum of Victoria in 1854 under the directorship of Frederick McCoy^[1]. It was founded in its current form under the Australian Museums Act (1983). The collections of around 16 million objects cover Indigenous items, science, history and technology^[2].

Significant events in the Museum's history include:

1854 - founding of the Museum of Natural and Economic Geology with William Blandowski as Government Zoologist
1856 - collections moved to the University of Melbourne by Frederick McCoy
1858 - McCoy appointed first director of the National Museum of Victoria
1870 - Industrial and Technological Museum opened
1899 - National Museum moved to Swanston Street, Melbourne
1945 - Industrial and Technology Museum renamed Museum of Applied Science
1961 - Museum of Applied Science renamed Institute of Applied Science
1971 - Institute of Applied Science renamed Science Museum of Victoria
1983 - National Museum of Victoria and Science Museum of Victoria amalgamated to form the Museum of Victoria
1992 - Scienceworks Museum (Melbourne) opened
1997 - Swanston Street campus closed
1998 - Museum of Victoria renamed Museum Victoria. Immigration Museum and Hellenic Antiquities Museum opened.
2000 - Melbourne Museum at Carlton Gardens opened.

The present Chief Executive Officer of Museum Victoria is Dr J. Patrick Greene.

Former Museum directors include:

^ Carolyn Rasmussen (2001) A museum for the people: A history of Museum Victoria and its predecessors 1854-2000, Scribe Publications Melbourne ISBN 0 90801169 5
^ Danielle Clode (2006) Continent of Curiosities: A journey through Australian natural history, Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 86620 0

Museums in the Melbourne City Centre

Note: this includes museums in the Melbourne City Centre and its fringe areas, not the Greater Melbourne metropolitan area

Chinese Museum · City Museum · Cooks' Cottage · Heide Museum of Modern Art · Hellenic Museum · Ian Potter Museum of Art · Immigration Museum · Jewish Museum · La Trobe's Cottage · Maritime Museum · Melbourne Museum · Sports Museum · Scienceworks Museum

See also: Events in the Melbourne City Centre · Landmarks in the Melbourne City Centre · Theatres in the Melbourne City Centre