Stories

In 1827, Governor Darling allocated £200 to the establishment and running of a museum, the Colonial Museum, which was subsequently renamed the Australian Museum. Discover some of the stories.

Australian Museum Archival images 200 Treasures

Bathurst's Letter

Foundation document for the establishment of the Australian Museum.

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A Favourite - George Masters Collection Certificate

George Masters Collection Certificate - one piece of paper that evokes a lot of history.

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A Whale of a Story

Suspended above the College Street entrance for 100 years, the Museum's largest specimen is hard to miss.

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Garden Palace Survivors

In 1879 the Australian Museum exhibited its Anthropology collections in a Sydney International Exhibition building called the Garden Palace.

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A Garden Palace Survivor: Our first Ethnology Catalogue

Our first Ethnology listing is a rare surviving witness to the Garden Palace Ethnology Court.

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Past exhibitions

The Australian Museum has long been known for its diverse and fascinating exhibitions. Discover our past exhibition resources online.

Indigenous Australians
Death: the last taboo
Trailblazers

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The Chusan Ball

In a time before the Internet and text messages, the arrival of the first British mail steam ship was cause for celebration in the colony.

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History

Find out about the history of the Museum’s zoological and anthropological collections, its historic and contemporary buildings and the people who have worked here over nearly two centuries.

Museum by the decade
Past exhibitions
Museum people

Ethel King's Snake Watercolours

A collection of watercolours by Ethel King for the 'Snakes of Australia' book by J.R. Kinghorn.

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Identifying the Museum’s Blaschka glass models

In 2009 archivist Patricia Egan demonstrated that the fragile glass models in the Museum's Archives were made by famous 19th-century German glass makers Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka.

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Museum people

Stories about the amazing people who’ve worked at the Australian Museum from 1827.

Curators
Directors

A Tale of Climbing Galaxias

Over a three-day period in late January 1993, Ranger Ian McArtney observed thousands of Galaxias (probably Mountain Galaxias) climbing the wall of Winburndale Dam, near Bathurst, New South Wales.

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Discover our collections

Museum Archives and Research Library

The Museum Archives and Research Library cares for the Museum’s institutional memory and its historic natural history book and journal collections dating from 1836.

History of the Museum
Archives
Rare books
Photography

Explore our history