What We Do

Vision and mission

The Society expresses its vision as:

To be a leader for the advancement of our cultural heritage through the study and understanding of its past for the future.

It defines its mission as:

  • preserving the material history of our region
  • collecting memorabilia, with historical relevance
  • interpreting artefacts for display and exhibits
  • for the broader community, experiencing the richness of our unique past, and
  • inspiring interest, research and participation.

The Society sees the aims of its preservation work as to:

  • build an historical resource for the community
  • collect and conserve important objects associated with the history of the region
  • collect local photographs and other pictorial material illustrating the places and people of the region
  • develop the collections as an educational resource.

And it currently defines the historical themes of its collection and preservation as:

  • regional Indigenous culture and communities
  • early European settlement and development in the region
  • history of mining in the region
  • history of the union movement in Broken Hill
  • regional rural and agricultural history
  • history of people, families and domestic life
  • regional and local business history
  • regional history of education
  • local social and religious history
  • history of local war service
  • contemporary events and subjects
  • tourist-related topics.

Our major activities

Coordinating the maintenance and development of the museums

The Historical Society’s main activity is the maintenance and ongoing development of the four museums for which it is responsible.

Inviting regular guest speakers

The Society also regularly organises and invites guest speakers on local historical topics and issues to many of its general meetings.

You will find more on how to become a guest speaker under Getting Involved.

Offering events and excursions

The Society offers events for the community, and occasional excursions relating to local history. Our most recent event was the well-attended celebration at the Silverton Gaol Museum, in November 2019, of 130 years since the building of the Gaol itself.

Inviting school visits

All schools, both primary and high schools, have a standing invitation to bring a class to visit  and explore any one of our museums.

The first important step is always to contact the museum, and make a booking. Information on how to do this is given on the individual museum pages:

Producing an annual Journal

The Historical Society has produced an annual printed Journal for members since 1965. You can read some of our recent museum reports as well as papers and presentations to the Society in the Journal via Papers and Presentations.

Note that papers and text of papers and presentations are very welcome as submissions to the Society website also.