Centenary Gift to the Nation

In 2014 we marked the Centenary of Australian Red Cross by donating our archive and heritage collection from the national office and Victorian division to the University of Melbourne Archives, a gift to the nation to be preserved and shared with future generations.

In June 2015 the transfer of annual reports and official records marked the start of a five-year process to handover one hundred years of photographs, records and treasured objects. At approximately 400 shelf metres, it will be the largest single donation the University of Melbourne Archives has ever received.

In June 2015 the first transfer of more than 970 archive boxes was made.

Over 18 months a team of staff and volunteers spent more than 3,000 hours preparing for the first transfer. The second transfer took place in 2016 and a third is scheduled for the first half of 2017. In the meantime, items of a medical nature will be transferred to the University's Medical History Museum.

It's been a huge job managing the archives of one of Australia's largest and oldest charities. We thank our dedicated teams of staff and volunteer archivists in each state and territory, who have faithfully cared for our historical records and memorabilia with limited space and resources.

In other states and territories, transfers are being made to public repositories.