The Geelong Historical Society
Fostering research that explores Geelong’s rich history.
The Geelong Historical Society was founded in 1944, and is dedicated to fostering and presenting historical research, and collaborating with exhibitions and public programs, to highlight the historical significance of Geelong and District.
For further information, please see our current Lecture Syllabus in Lectures.
Read the Investigator online.
Members can open the latest editions of Investigator by clicking the images above.
Investigating our past to enrich our future
We hold monthly meetings
The Society holds eleven monthly meeting on the first Wednesday of the month, beginning in February.
Well researched lectures
Our monthly meeting includes a presentation lecture which relates to a well researched topic of historical significance.
Links the past and present
We engage with ideas that explore how Geelong’s history has shaped its past and continues to influence our shared future.
Join us here
We meet at 7.30pm at the Virginia Todd Community Centre, 9-15 Clarence Street, Geelong West.
Our Meetings are free
Members of the public are more than welcome to attend our meetings. They are free of charge to all attending.
Read our Magazine
The Society also publishes a quarterly magazine Investigator. Please see the Publications Page for more detail.
Latest Posts
Latest Posts
82 Years of Research and Publishing
The Story of Geelong
The first edition of Investigator, the Geelong Historical Society magazine, was published in September of 1965 and it included a series of articles it described as ‘The Story of Geelong’.
The Investigator magazine wanted to chronicle the earliest European exploration of Port Phillip Bay and the greater Geelong area. No author is explicitly acknowledged and the reader is left to surmise that it is the writing of the Investigator’s first editor, Ian Wynd. These articles are taken from those early issues from the 1960s. The author takes us back to the late 1790s, only 10 years after the first settlement in New South Wales, at Port Jackson.
The subsequent articles include the first recorded contact with the Wadawurrung which, whilst initially harmonious, culminated in discord and violence and ultimate demise of the Bengalat clan by the mid-1840s.
The Early History of Geelong
THE WATHAURUNGS
The October Lecture Report
September 2025 Speaker Report
Letters from Pioneers to Governor La Trobe, 1853: No 6
Mr J.T. Gellibrand’s Memoranda of a trip to Port Phillip in 1836.
1854: A ‘Golden’ Year for Geelong
The Investigator
We publish the Investigator magazine four times a year. It is distributed to financial members as part of their $40 annual subscription. Members can also read the entire back copy of the Magazine online, starting with the September issue of 1965.
You can read extracts from the magazine by clicking the links below. These articles offer non-members a taste of the articles that can be found in Investigator. They include a reflection on the impacts of Hume & Hovell’s epic journey to Corio Bay in 1824, a letter written by Foster Fyans in 1853 describing the people, indigenous and settler, of the Port Phillip District from its earliest times and account of Hume & Hovell’s explorations from our first volume of Investigator in 1966.
Articles from the Investigator
Our Commitment to our Members
Our Objectives
Holding Monthly Meetings with a Lecture or guest speaker
Holding Annual General Meetings and Quarterly Executive Committee Meetings
Publishing of the quarterly Investigator magazine
Excursions held in Spring and Autumn
Publishing Books and Pamphlets
Providing information on Geelong and District history
Commemorating historical sites with memorials or plaques
Collecting and preserving historical documents and artefacts
Assisting in the preservation of historical buildings and structures
We Acknowledge the Wadawurrung People, the Traditional Owners of the Land upon which we live.