Chiltern Athenaeum Museum

Chiltern Athenaeum Museum This page is for people interested in history of Chiltern, Victoria

A happy group of local girls - Maria Bogetti sitting at the front of Mary Marengo, unknown girl and Mary Smyth - hoping ...
31/05/2026

A happy group of local girls - Maria Bogetti sitting at the front of Mary Marengo, unknown girl and Mary Smyth - hoping someone can identify the unknown girl

21/05/2026

The Chiltern Athenaeum officially re-opened on Sunday after five-year restoration closure

Today is the day - the Chiltern Athenaeum Museum is open once again - we look forward to your visit
20/05/2026

Today is the day - the Chiltern Athenaeum Museum is open once again - we look forward to your visit

Very few headstones remain at the Chiltern Old Cemetery - earlier burials were marked with wooden memorials, no doubt ma...
19/05/2026

Very few headstones remain at the Chiltern Old Cemetery - earlier burials were marked with wooden memorials, no doubt many were intricately carved, and with wooden railing fences - but these structures have been lost to the ravages of time including fires such as the fire in February of 1892 when an employee of a monumental mason was engaged to re-paint and polish up some of the old tombstones. He dug a small hole to light a fire in for the melting of solder, the fire ignited the grass and spread rapidly destroying all the wooden structures and blackening the stone headstones. There may be no monuments for many of those buried here but the grounds are covered with a multitude of bulbs that in springtime flower profusely - relics of times past, planted way back in memory of loved ones at rest here. There are so many stories of those buried here and today we remember Janet Balmer
On the 2nd of April 1860 Janet Balmer / Ballmore, aged 30 years, was living at Indigo with her two daughters when she became ill with enteritis and died; she was buried here the following day.
Janet, nee McNiel, was 21 when she married Wright Balmore an Iron Moulder in Glasgow, Scotland; their son William was born in 1854, and the family sailed to South Australia, arriving in February 1855. Wright took up work as a bush carpenter along the Murray River where daughter Mary was born in 1857. By 1859 Wright was mining at Mt Pleasant Indigo and daughter Elizabeth was born there. Work in the mines was petering out on the Indigo so Wright, along with many other local miners, joined the rush to Kiandra on the Snowy River Goldfields in New South Wales. Janet was destitute when she died, sadly believed Wright had abandoned his family. Wright had sent money back to his wife, but it had been appropriated by others. Two young children were left without a mother so Mr Walter Haines of Christmas Town and Federal Standard editor George Mott took up donations to care for them as they also believed their father had abandoned them - Wright provided financially for them but as happened so often back then if a mother died the children were adopted out and cared for by local families. The girls still kept the Bullmore Balmer name. Note the variation in names - makes it challenging in locating records - it is believed son William who was born in Scotland died previous to the family moving to Mt Pleasant Indigo.
Janet is one of the many young women who left home and family behind for a new life in the colony, and who are buried in Chiltern's Old Cemetery.

The Chiltern Athenaeum Museum was officially opened on Sunday the 17th of May with a large crowd in attendance - the mus...
19/05/2026

The Chiltern Athenaeum Museum was officially opened on Sunday the 17th of May with a large crowd in attendance - the museum will be open Wednesdays and Sundays from 10am to 3pm - it will be open more days in the future as more volunteers come on board.

16/05/2026

Tuesday 19th May 2026
"Threads through time”💍👰💐🌷🌹🌺

Venue: Hyphen - Wodonga Library Gallery 7.00pm
Guest Speakers: Carolyn Renfrey, Ann Kerin & Janette Griggs 💍👰💐🌷🌹🌺
Join us for this nostalgic presentation on the evolution of weddings from 1900-1970 through fashion, customs, and family records.
💎📖🖍️
Discover how our ancestors celebrated love through times of elegance, adversity, and abundance—and learn how wedding details
U3A Albury Wodonga Inc. Albury LibraryMuseum & Lavington Library Wodonga Council Albury & District Historical Society Albury Women's Shed Wodonga & District Historical Society Inc Chiltern Athenaeum Museum What's On in Albury Wodonga Albury Wodonga & Surrounds

The Chiltern Athenaeum Museum, a library from 1867 until the late 1960s, there were many librarians and curators over th...
15/05/2026

The Chiltern Athenaeum Museum, a library from 1867 until the late 1960s, there were many librarians and curators over that time. From 1900 James Cunningham was the librarian until he left the district in 1914, when music teacher Miss Hepzibar Garlick took on the position until ill health forced her to relinquish the role in 1938. Future librarians were Miss Lizzie Wain and Miss Agnes Findlay. Chiltern folk have fond memories of visiting the library, reading books and checking out the collection of interesting objects on display. We have a photo of librarian Agnes Findlay at the Telegraph Hotel in 1986 when it became the first Pub TAB in North East Victoria (Border Mail photo). Unfortunately, we have no photographs of other librarians to share. But we do have this photo of some of the Chiltern Athenaeum Committee who managed the museum in 2001: Back Row – Martin and Pam Britton, Erica Hansen, Rex Fuge (President), Clive Hansen; Front Row Eunice De Piazza, Mary Fuge, Dawn Disher, Margaret and Bob Adkins.
Thanks to Beverley Wain for the photo of Miss Lizzie Wain circa 1938

Big day on Sunday for the re-opening of the Athenaeum Museum. The restoration works are done, with many items back on di...
14/05/2026

Big day on Sunday for the re-opening of the Athenaeum Museum. The restoration works are done, with many items back on display and library books back in the bookcases. The library collection is significant as one of very few libraries established during the goldfields era. Volunteers spent weeks sorting through the library collection of over 5,000 books, previously stacked 2 or 3 deep in the bookcases in no particular order. The shelves are now stacked with a collection of books reflecting the reading habits of Chiltern folk over time, from the classics of the early days to the Westerns and Mills and Boons of later years. The remaining books are in storage, with many awaiting restorative works. Pictured is Stephen Masters, a volunteer sorting through some of the books (Ann Killeen photographer).

Thanks to Peter Quick for sharing these photos from his late mother-in-law Sheilah nee Ryan’s collection of weddings at ...
12/05/2026

Thanks to Peter Quick for sharing these photos from his late mother-in-law Sheilah nee Ryan’s collection of weddings at St Mary's Catholic church in Chiltern, believed to be from the 1940s. These photos are un-named – can anyone identify those in the photos - thanks

The Chiltern Courthouse and Judges Chambers, situated on government land in Crawford Streeet, photographed in 1861 - th...
09/05/2026

The Chiltern Courthouse and Judges Chambers, situated on government land in Crawford Streeet, photographed in 1861 - the photo was donated to the Chiltern Athenaeum in 1893 by Fred Miller. Chiltern township was built amongst the gold mines and this article from the "Ovens and Murray Advertiser," of the 7th of October 1865 describes Chiltern of the time: - 'Chiltern as it was first styled " New Ballarat," from its deep sinking is purely a diggings township. It is about 17miles from Beechworth in a direction slightly west of north, and contains, within the Municipality, about 1,500 inhabitants. The population of the town and immediately surrounding gold fields may be about 2,200. The township is very badly situated, both because its site is entirely undermined by claims and because, until the Municipality went to very large expense in opening huge and ugly drains it was liable to be flooded. The subsidence of the ground can scarcely yet be said to have ceased, and this naturally has prevented persons putting up brick buildings which otherwise would undoubtedly have been done. The streets are narrow, badly laid out and straggling, but the Council has done its best to remedy this unfortunate state of things. It is doubly provoking to see the town in its present plight, as there is a pleasant and sound rising ground within a few hundred yards where costly drainage would have been unnecessary and there would have been no stagnant water to endanger the public health. A proposition was once made by this Journal that a new township be laid out on the hill and Government applied to give the inhabitants business sites there corresponding with those at present occupied, but although the town would thus in time have crept out of its" Slough of Despond," the idea appeared to be quite beyond the comprehension of the desires of the Chiltern people. The township has, like all digging’s townships, a good deal fallen off since the best days of the mines, but it some time since reached the turning point, and from the known auriferous resources of the country round, from the recent search for reef's, establishment and the of Limited Liability Companies, it must now steadily improve. The country roundabout is undulating, well grassed and lightly timbered. The depth of sinking ranges from 40 feet to 230, but the Indigo Grand Junction Company fully expect that their ground, and that below them will be even deeper than this. Chiltern is about 25 miles from Wangaratta on the old Sydney Road, and coaches arrive and leave daily from and to Melbourne and Beechworth. The Federal Standard is printed here, and under the name of the Constitution is likewise published in Beechworth.'

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57 Conness Street
Chiltern, VIC
3683

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