A multi-pronged community campaign over a number of years to see the town’s George Evan’s Museum collection put back on permanent display – including an online petition started by Sunbury Life – is starting to bear fruit.
Hume City Councillors voted Monday 28 July to accept officer’s recommendations to put the museum’s collection on display at Sunbury’s Macedon St Global Learning Centre (GLC), in an area currently used as an art exhibition space. The decision was made with the support of Sunbury councillor Kate Hamley.
The museum’s collection has been kept in storage for years, after the original museum building was re-purposed by the council – forcing the museum to close.
Cllr Hamley said: “The Sunbury region is rich in history going back thousands of years.
“Sadly, much of it has been lost due to colonisation and the forced removal of the Wurundjeri people from their country. But our post-colonisation history has largely been recorded and conserved.
“Thanks to the commitment of our community, we have a significant collection of over 10,000 items in our civic collection, documenting and celebrating the early history of the Sunbury and Bulla region.
“The George Evans collection of about 3,000 items forms part of our civic collection and is currently kept at the Sunbury Global Learning Centre, with some items rotated through dedicated display cabinets within the [Sunbury] library.
“Officers investigated 20 different locations for the George Evans Museum [collection] and have recommended the Global Learning Centre in Sunbury as the most suitable space to store, display, and enhance community access to this important collection.”
Cllr Hamley said the GLC is visited more than 250,000 times each year and that the building has a climate controlled undercroft to ensure historical artefacts are “safely preserved for future generations”.
“It has well-appointed spaces suitable for research on the collection, and diving further into the artefacts that we have. And it also features a quality gallery space available for exhibitions or displays,” she said.
“I know that the preference has been for a dedicated building, and I hope that one day we can see that happen. Hopefully in one of the glorious heritage buildings up at Jacksons Hill. But in the meantime, this is a reasonable compromise.”
Art normally displayed at the GLC will be put on show at the Jackson’s Hill Arts and Cultural Precinct that’s due to open by the year-end following renovation works on Building 22.