Historical information

Dr Michele Matthews has been a local and social historian for nearly three decades since she first used correspondence held by the then Bendigo City Council for her Honours thesis. She is an ardent advocate for the use of local history records to tell Victorian and Australian history from a grassroots perspective. Michele’s MA thesis, ‘A forgotten “Father” of Federation: Sir John Quick 1852‑1911’ (2003), and her PhD thesis, ‘Survivors, schemes, Samaritans and shareholders: the impact of the Great Depression on Bendigo and District 1925‑1935’ (2007), both drew heavily on Bendigo and district records.

Physical description

Michele Matthews Collection: PHD Research - Directory of Addresses in Bendigo and surrounds

This item includes the following document:

8672.34a The document is a 71-page scanned historical directory of the Bendigo district in Victoria, Australia. Rather than being a narrative document, it is an alphabetical directory listing residents, businesses, organisations, and localities. Because it is a scanned historical source, very little text can be extracted automatically, but the page images clearly show that it functions as a telephone or commercial directory for Bendigo and the surrounding district.

The directory contains alphabetical listings of individuals and businesses, generally providing names, street addresses or localities, and telephone numbers where applicable. It covers Bendigo as well as numerous surrounding towns and communities, including places such as Benambra, Eaglehawk, Kangaroo Flat, Maiden Gully, White Hills, and many other regional localities.

Throughout the directory are advertisements from a wide range of local businesses and organisations. These include insurance companies, banks, breweries, land agents, manufacturers, retailers, and other commercial enterprises that were operating in the region at the time. The advertisements provide valuable insight into the businesses and services available in Bendigo during the period in which the directory was published.

Many pages also contain handwritten notes, coloured highlighting, underlining, and circled entries. These annotations suggest that the directory has been used as a working research document, with particular people, businesses, or addresses marked for reference or verification. The annotations add another layer of historical interest by indicating previous research activity within the directory.

Overall, the document serves as a valuable historical resource for genealogical, local history, and community research. It provides a detailed snapshot of the Bendigo district's residents, businesses, and commercial activity at the time of publication, making it useful for tracing families, locating historical addresses, and studying the social and economic landscape of the region.