Military Museum considered amongst State’s best

THE Bendigo Military Museum’s ongoing efforts to preserve and share Central Victoria’s military history have been recognised with one of the highest accolades possible after being named an honouree in the 2023-25 Victorian Collections ‘Best in Show’ list.

Victorian Collections is a free online collection management system for organisations to help catalogue, digitise and upload their records (often historical), and contains thousands of viewable-to-the-public items held by galleries, museums, libraries, archives, historical societies and cultural collections.

Curator Dell Winser said the distinction is a “great privilege” that reflects well on the Museum’s volunteer cataloguers in particular.

“It’s great recognition for everything that they do up here,” she said.

“It’s really interesting, the work that they do – they tell the story of the item (and) tell the story of the collection that the item’s in.

“That’s why it’s significant. We don’t have a collection without them. “I can do my job as best I can downstairs but without the cataloguers and without the guides, we don’t have a museum either.”

Describing the contents of the institution’s treasure trove, Ms Winser said “it’s everything you’d think it is and so much more.”

“It’s tanks, it’s medals, it’s badges,” she said. “We’ve got photographs, we’ve got uniforms, but it’s not only your standard military history.

“We’ve got postcards that have been hand sewn that tie people from overseas and people serving to people living in Bendigo, and we’ve scanned a whole lot of personal letters from different people while they’ve been overseas writing home.

“So it’s that personal connection, the social history as well as the military history. You’re getting people’s feelings.

“These people are long gone but you’re getting to know how they felt at the time.

“They talk about it’s not a great place to be, it’s muddy, it’s filthy, it’s dirty, they’re frightened. You get more of their personal history.”

Ms Winser said she believes the essence of the Museum is that it forms an integral part of the local community’s history.

“This is the story of Bendigo,” she said.

“The gold rush, our Chinese history, our military history, they all interlink – you can’t have one and not build the other.

“We need to take care of our collection to make sure that that history, that story keeps being told.”

She said she’s been receiving more and more positive feedback about the reach the Museum’s presence on the Victorian Collections platform has realised, on which it has so far logged almost 9500 individual digitised items. “We’re not just local (anymore),” she said.

“We’re not just giving access to Bendigo people or Central Victorian people, we’re (providing) worldwide access.

“It means that people can research their family from the comfort of their homes from anywhere.

“That’s what this award means as well.

“It acknowledges that we’re (operating) on an international scale.”

Find the Bendigo Military Museum’s (searchable) collection on the Victorian Collections website.

The Museum, located at 37-39 Pall Mall, is open Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 3pm.