The Salvation Army Australia - Museum

15/12/2025

CHRISTMAS CLOSURE
The Salvation Army Museum Melbourne site will be closed from Tuesday 23 December 2025, 3.00pm AEDT, and will reopen on Monday 12 January 2026, 9:00am.

As posted earlier the Sydney site is currently closed and in the process of moving to Auburn with plans to open mid-February.

Thank you for your support during 2025. We hope for you a very safe and blessed Christmas and look forward to connecting with you all again in the new year!

08/12/2025

SYDNEY MUSEUM MOVE
The Sydney museum is temporarily closed whilst relocating from Bexley to Auburn (166-170 South Parade AUBURN NSW 2144). Opening of the Auburn site is expected to be February 2026.

Boxes packed and ready for 18km trip across town

26/10/2025

25/10/2025

GRENFELL CORPS (NSW) - 1945.

25/10/2025

PERTH FORTRESS (Western Australia) - undated.

24/10/2025

Mrs Major Patience HASLUCK [by Dot Skewes]

Admitted to Long Service Order - 1925
Born in Chiswick in England in 1870 Patience Wooler left England for Western Australia in 1892.
Travelling on the Echuca she was destined for employment as a companion with Mrs Frederick Hare who was wife of the Warden and Resident Magistrate of the Eastern Goldfields in York. In 1893 this Western Australian town must have seemed extremely strange for the girl from London – which was by then a city of 5 million.
Patience came to her new employment with practical skills she had acquired working as a cook/domestic servant in England. Twelve months later she had fulfilled the requirements of her Assisted Immigration Passage and was also enrolled in The Salvation Army.
She aspired to being a Salvation Army officer and was on her way to Training College when she was asked to help with the first Prison Gate Brigade Home in Western Australia. She began “on the job” training, as a Cadet, under Captain Jennie and Lieutenant Henrietta Fuller. The skills she bought into this task earned her accolades.
Much later Mrs Major Peter Elder (nee Jennie Fuller) wrote of her as a “treasure”. She brought into her role a whole set of practical skills which enabled her to operate extremely well with the young girls among whom she worked. In the early days water for washing was drawn from a 60 foot well. Before the water could be used the girls first had to strain the water to remove the pine needles which had been scattered by nearby trees. It must have been hard work, but years later in retirement, Patience mentioned that she still saw many of these girls.
A change in approach to officer training meant that in 1896 Patience was off to Training College in Melbourne.
While her first posting as a Lieutenant was to the Latrobe Corps in Tasmania the following 5 years were spent in Rescue Homes. She spent two terms at Adelaide Rescue Home but was involved in the opening of the Broken Hill Home in between these two tenures.
In 1901 she travelled to Northam to be married to Captain E’thel Hasluck. Hasluck had been born in Holborn less than 10 miles from Patience’s birthplace. He had been converted in Perth at the time that she was working in the Rescue Home and was also in Training College in the same session in 1896.
The next 30 years of their marriage was spent in the southern corner of Western Australia in both corps and social work postings. In 1932 they made a move east to Adelaide and management of the People’s Palace. It was from this position that they retired and returned to Western Australia.
Throughout her life Mrs Major Patience Hasluck was renowned for the kindliness and good works which had been so evident in the early stages of the career as an officer. She was promoted to glory in June of 1954 and interred at Karrakatta Cemetery in Perth. She was mourned by her family, including her son the Hon. Paul Hasluck Minister for Territories – later Governor General.

24/10/2025

Mrs Major Alice BIRKENSHAW
Alice Loof was born in 1863 in Collingwood. She was the niece of Brigadier Hendy and regularly accompanied him on his visits to the Melbourne Gaol where she played the organ and sung to the prisoners; she also visited and prayed with the women in their cells.
In 1886 Alice married Captain Joseph Birkenshaw, who had recently arrived from England, and their career included appointments in the Field, in Training and Divisional work, State Commands and Headquarters appointments.
The Birkenshaws retired as Colonels in 1926; Alice was promoted-to-glory in 1944.

23/10/2025

GLENROY CITADEL BAND - 1969 ....... COMPLETE WITH LEFT-HAND TROMBONIST.
Bandmaster Malcolm Thompson, Corps Officers Captains Brian & Evelyn Golding

23/10/2025

VISIT THE 1890's ATTIC PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO ATOP 69 BOURKE STREET ...... tour the "Limelight Department Museum", and see the original colouring studio as it looked 130 years ago.

23/10/2025

BUNDAMBA TIMBREL BRIGADE - 1994.

23/10/2025

COMMISSIONER THOMAS McKIE (front centre) WITH STAFF, FIELD & SOCIAL OFFICERS, PHOTOGRAPHED BY THE "SALVATION ARMY STUDIOS" - c.1905.