The best Melbourne history museums are the Immigration Museum, the Melbourne Museum and the Old Melbourne Gaol. You can expect plenty of stories and surprises in all three.
Melbourne in Victoria, Australia, has got a fantastic cultural scene. But some of the city’s museums are better than others. If you want to learn about Melbourne’s backstory – and Australia’s past – these are the three best Melbourne history museums for visitors.
Best Melbourne history museums: The Immigration Museum
The Immigration Museum brings together stories of how Australia has been settled since the first Europeans arrived in 1788.
Many are individual accounts blazed on video screens, but there’s also a reconstruction of a convict ship that shows how grim conditions on the long voyage were.
Most shocking is the exploration of the exceptionally racist tests potential immigrants were once subjected to. Questions had to be answered in a European language – and those immigration officers didn’t like the look of would have to answer in something obscure like Gaelic or Maltese, irrespective of where they were from.
Tickets cost $15 when booked in advance.
Melbourne’s best history museums: The Melbourne Museum
The Melbourne Museum is not strictly a history museum, but it sure covers plenty of history. Melbourne’s flagship cultural institution is fantastically varied, with genuine “woah!” exhibits coming thick and fast.
The Melbourne Museum has a mind-boggling collection of stuffed animals, including the extinct thylacine and pig-footed bandicoot. There are skeletons of giant marsupials that once roamed Oz. Then there’s a cross section of a gigantic 619-year-old tree felled in Queensland, time-lapse maps of how Melbourne has grown and 3D grids showing how Victoria’s indigenous people are part of 11 separate language families. It’s multi-faceted and regularly fascinating.
Melbourne Museum tickets can be booked online.
Best Melbourne history museums: Old Melbourne Gaol
The home-made armour of 19th century outlaw Ned Kelly draws people into the Old Melbourne Gaol. But it’s the grim cells and tales of bloodythirsty colonial era justice that ramp up the “rather them than me” factor.
Again, tickets can booked online.
More Melbourne travel
Other Melbourne travel articles on Planet Whitley include:
- How to get the best out of a visit to the National Gallery of Victoria.
- Tips for visiting ACMI in Federation Square.
- Review of the MCG tour.
- Guide to Birrarung Marr – central Melbourne’s riverside park
- A practical guide to visiting Werribee Open Range Zoo.
