Regional Networks

In 1890, from the Technological Museum housed in the Agricultural Hall, curator J H Maiden establishes four branch museums in regional NSW Technical Schools – Bathurst, Goulburn, West Maitland and Newcastle. Each stocked with around 2,000 specimens, Maiden sees these regional museums ‘as an integral part, not only of a system of technical education, but of the general plan of public education for the whole country.’

In his initial vision for the museum, Liversidge saw a central institution around others would be gathered.

The regional museums are designed for two groups of people, visitors, and ‘local students and residents, who should not be compelled to go to Sydney to study a collection of specimens informing them as to the nature and properties of the things which go to make the clothes they wear, the food they eat, the appliances they daily see and use, and so forth. For their benefit, also a collection of the local products should be got together, in order that a man may be conversant with the resources of his own district, and have his interest excited both in the development of resources known to him, and in the searching out of fresh ones.’

As Maiden explains to the Minister for Public Instruction, overall control of these branch institutions must remain in Sydney to ensure they do not become ‘magnified dustbins … destitute of educational value’.