Contacts

Broken Hill Historical Society and a small volunteer group have responsibility for running four local museums.

So it’s important to talk to, or email just the right person when you have a question.

Generally people contact us for two reasons:

  1. to find out something about the Society’s museums, and
  2. to ask for help with researching local history — anything from colonial life, to mines, to buildings to local film culture to families, and so much more.

Sometimes, people also want to ask about becoming a member, or meeting times, or where we meet, or the Society’s constitution.

And sometimes they’d like to be a guest speaker at a Society meeting: to present a paper, or to discuss the results of some of their local or regional research – perhaps now included in a book they’ve published. (Offers to speak come from all over Australia, and internationally.)

Whatever your reasons for being in touch, before you do so, check through the contacts below.

Museums

Museum queries go directly to the Society’s Museum Coordinators, and you will also find a lot more information such as opening times and location as well as its own history on each museum’s individual web page:

  • Mosque Museum: Contact Caretaker Bobby Shamroze at shamroze1@bigpond.com.au or 0400 184 260 or 08 8088 3187.
  • Silverton Gaol Museum: Contact Coordinator Ross Wecker at @viper.mars@bigpond.com or 0400 184 260. Or contact the Museum itself at 08 8088 5317.
  • Silverton School Educational Museum: Contact Coordinator Marlene Bettes at dixiebettes1@gmail.com or 0448 882 550. You can also try the Museum, which has variable opening times, at 08 8088 7481.
  • Synagogue of the Outback Museum: Contact Coordinator Margaret Price at margaret_price@hotmail.com.au or 0439 680 944. You could also try the Museum itself at 08 8088 7448.

Society business/organising

Any queries on Society business go directly to specific members:

President: Jim Daly via email Helen-Daly@bigpond.com, on 0417 280 974 or via snail mail to PO Box 212, Broken Hill, 2880. 

Contact Jim for any overall issues relating to, for example:

Secretary: Helen Daly via email Helen-Daly@bigpond.com, or 0412 676 302, or via snail mail to PO Box 212, Broken Hill, 2880.

Contact Helen on the following kinds of issues:

  • becoming or member or renewing a membership; where Society meetings are held, and when; and, as a member, how to get a copy of the Society’s Constitution;
  • being a guest speaker at a Society meeting to lead a discussion or present a paper on historical research relating to the local or regional area, or even from a book published from that research;
  • temporarily only, on all publicity matters, such as questions and requests for ‘talking heads’  from local media, events the Society is staging and etc.
  • temporarily only, on financial matters usually handled by a treasurer.

Journal Editor: Gary Cook via email inpsyght@yahoo.com.au. Contact Gary for queries about and contributions to the Society Journal.

Web Content: Jan Mahyuddin via email societybhhsoc@gmail.com. Contact Jan for suggested contributions to and queries about the Society website and Facebook page.

Research

Regional history

There are many paths to researching the history of Broken Hill and its regions, depending on what history you are exploring. The Historical Society is just one source amongst many other groups and their preservation processes — from the digital to museums themselves.

Society museums

All Society museum coordinators are senior historians as well as born and bred ‘Hillites’ with long memories, and many years of work in historical preservation. Contact as follows:

Margaret Price (Coordinator Synagogue Museum)

  • for local general history;
  • for regional Jewish settler history from the 1880s;
  • for the donated collection Margaret also currently curates; these are items from letters to photographs to posters to books and newspapers on the colonial/settler history of the region, with considerable emphasis on mining. You are very welcome to visit this museum and research in person or, if that’s not possible, call or email Margaret to see if she can organise some research within this collection for you.

Bobby Shamroze (Caretaker Mosque Museum)

  • for research into the history of the Mosque itself, and any of its artifacts;
  • for research into the local history of the Afghan cameleers and for family history relating to local cameleer backgrounds.