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Night at the Museum


Alfred William Eustace - Oil on gum leaf


Typical trolley from the Chiltern Goldfields


Photos of soldiers from the WW1 Honour Roll


Gold Weighing Scales from the Gold Rush

The Old Colonists' Association of Victoria

The Old Colonists’ Association was founded in Victoria in 1869 by Politician and actor George Coppin to form a permanent Society of old colonists and a memorial to the pioneers of the Port Phillip District. It was a charitable organisation to house and care for elderly people who were far from home and often destitute. Coppin’s aim was not simply to found a social club for prosperous old Colonists to meet one another in comfortable surroundings and exchange success stories, but to assist those Pioneers who had been unable to provide for their old age by providing accommodation for them.  His own precarious existence in the theatre may have made him sympathetic to those experiencing financial hardship.

It appears that a very close association was formed between the Old Colonists’ Association and the Australian Natives Association that was formed in 1871. The ANA made regular contributions to the funds of the OCA.

The Old Colonists’ Association of the Ovens and Murray District was formed in 1886. It appears that the headquarters was at Chiltern where meetings were held at the Star Hotel next door to the Chiltern Athenaeum (Town Hall). The Old Colonists’ Association register, held at the Athenaeum museum along with a framed photographic collection of 33 members, records a membership of 59, with 23 members joining on 13th May 1886. This branch of the Association had been wound up by 1904 although the organisation still has offices in Melbourne and Ballarat and housing estates at North Fitzroy, Eltham North, Braeside Park and Euroa.

Members of the Old Colonists’ Association of the Ovens and Murray District 1886

Edward Barrass Benjamin Jackson Bartley John William Beck James Black Frederick Brown Richard Henry Watt Carlington Thomas Bayley Somers Carwithen Neil Christian Alfred William Eustace Thomas Gardiner Findlay Joseph Gaggioni Alexander Hodge Gibson Dr Frank Haley Andrew Kilgour Thomas Lambert Charles Martin Robert McLachlan

William Hogg McNeill Thomas Kidston Mein William Milne Thomas Peel Joseph Sammons William Shaw John H Smith Oscar Smith John Strickland Frederick William Thompson Alexander Tone Walter Frederick Tuck Martin Wenke John Reeves Whitehead Thomas Whitmore Frederick Francis Woodward