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MUSEUM EXHIBITS
The exhibits are many and varied and may be
categorised as mentioned in the list below. Click on a category name to see details relating to
the exhibits in that category. Photos of some of the exhibits have been arranged
into a gallery. Click here to view the gallery.
There are other photos in the left hand column of this page.
MODEL SHIPS
There are many excellent models on display
including a collection of ships in bottles
PADDLE STEAMERS HYGEIA AND WEEROONA
These two exceptional models are on loan to our Museum from
Museum Victoria. Together they create a base for a new display featuring the Bay
Steamers which brought thousands of visitors down the bay to Queenscliff and
Sorrento.
1. HYGEIA: 986 tons, 300 feet long.
Built in 1890 by
Napier, Shanks & Bell of Glasgow for Huddart Parker & Co. She was built to
compete directly with the popular PS Ozone, and was generally regarded as
one of the fastest and finest appointed paddle steamers ever built for
Australian service with a top speed in excess of 22 knots.
Licensed to
carry 1,600 passengers she operated regular excursion trips each summer between
Melbourne, Queenscliff and Sorrento for 40 years and was often chartered for
company picnics and special events.
2. WEEROONA: 1412 tons 310 feet 6 inches long
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Built in Glasgow
in 1910 by A. S. Inglis for the Huddart Parker subsidiary Bay Steamers Ltd. She arrived in
Port Phillip under her own steam via the Suez Canal, Columbia, Batavia (now
Djakarta), Thursday Is., Brisbane & Sydney.
With a capacity
for 1,900 passengers she was the last and largest of the purpose-built Port
Phillip Bay Steamers and remained in service until 1942 when she was purchased
by the US Navy.
She was bought by the
Australian Government in 1945
and dismantled in Berry
Bay, NSW in 1951.
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3. DAVID CLARKE
The first assisted
migrant ship to come to Melbourne
4. CLIPPER LIGHTNING
The fastest wooden ship ever built. The Lightning burned to her
waterline in Geelong in 1869.
5. PILOT SCHOONER RIP
The model of the Pilot schooner
Rip is magnificent
There are photos
of the models of Lightning and Rip in the
exhibits photo gallery
HYDROGRAPHIC MODEL OF THE
RIP AT THE ENTRANCE TO PORT PHILLIP AND THE LONSDALE BIGHT
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Horizontal scale: 1:5000
Vertical scale is exaggerated by a factor of 10
The model was made by H J Reed, Hydrographer, Queenscliff from surveys
completed in 1983
The exhibit identifies major features of geomorphology,
navigation details, historic wreck sites and points of general interest.
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LIGHTHOUSE DISPLAY
There are 2
aspects to lighthouses. One is lighthouse buildings and tours of lighthouses
which are covered in a
separate page of the website.
The second
aspect relates to exhibiting various items of lighthouse equipment. The
Australian Maritime Safety Authority have assisted, encouraged and advised
the Museum in establishing an exceptional lighthouse exhibition featuring the
lighthouses of Victoria and Bass Strait. The Museum was fortunate to become a
repository for redundant lighthouse equipment and boasts a wide range of
artefacts including, flashers, fresnel lens,
signalling
lamps, ventilators, timing mechanisms, sun valves, drum lens, switches, hoods,
change over lamps and light panel equipment which for many years, helped guide
small and large vessels safely around the Australian coast.
Visitors to the Museum may stand inside the prisms of a lighthouse and see for
themselves how the prisms distort light and shapes,
DIVE DISPLAY
Includes an early Siebe Gorman helmet, suit, hand operated air compressor and
closed circuit breathing apparatus, early scuba suits, regulators, weight belts
and, underwater cameras. A Snead shallow water diving helmet and lever pump is
also part of the display. Young visitors (and the young at heart) can experience
what it felt like to wear a dive helmet.
CHINESE FISHERMEN
Amongst the first to settle on the sand flat north of the plank road that
is now Wharf Street in Queenscliff were Chinese fishermen. This sand spit was called Chinaman’s Point.
It was the for-runner
of the area that developed into the historic Fishermen’s Flat. The Chinese also
salted and cured fish which was taken up to the goldfields to their compatriots. The Museum features an impressive display of Chinese jars and dishes
from the Peter Ferrier Collection. Some of these are shown in the photo.
ARTEFACTS FROM SHIP WRECKS
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Artefacts
on display include items from the M V Time -
stranded on Corsair Rock in 1949. The Museum has an extensive Time
collection as the salvage rights and cargo were bought by a local consortium of
8 people. Following the removal and sale of her cargo of sugar, timber and
hides an auction of all the Time's equipment and fittings was held in the
park at Queenscliff. Many of the items purchased during the auction have been
kindly donated or loaned to the Museum. The photo is of Time on Corsair.
The ship's telegraph in the left hand column is from Time. |
LIFESAVING EQUIPMENT
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An important part
of the Lifeboat display is the rocket launching equipment, used to bring
stranded people to shore with the help of pulleys, ropes and a breeches buoy.
This equipment, along with a Schermuly rocket pistol, signal pistol, rocket line
throwing apparatus, the lifeboat crew’s wet weather gear, life jackets armbands
and citations for bravery complement the magnificently restored Lifeboat Queenscliffe. |
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HISTORICAL POSTCARDS
An extensive collection of
old
Queenscliff and Point Lonsdale postcards is part of a display of postcards
from around Port Phillip
NAUTICAL PICTURES
Browse the exhibition of nautical pictures on
display including tall ships under sail and early steam ships. Our
Librarian is developing a comprehensive index of pictures of ships that have
brought immigrants to our shores. More information about this index will be
available soon.
ALSO......
Anchors from the
Komet and Eliza Ramsden, propellers from a J Class Submarine,
buoys, channel markers and lights are exhibited at the Museum. Those
who want more hands on activities
than the activities already described, may sound a portable fog horn, ring ships
bells, try a morse key and play on Benito’s pirate boat or the red lifeboat in
the museum grounds.
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