Moonee Valley Family & Local History Blog

Essendon Airport is gearing up to celebrate it's centenary in August!  Photograph courtesy of Moonee Valley Libraries To mark the momentous occasion, our friends from Essendon Fields have installed a fantastic new display in the Community Heritage area of Sam Merrifield library. Pop into the library and learn about this important piece of Moonee Valley history, and relive your own memories of Melbourne's first airport (and one of the world's oldest!). The display will be in place until August 10th at Sam Merrifield Library, 762 Mt Alexander Road, Moonee Ponds. The airport will also be hosting a range of initiatives and events throughout 2021, keep an eye on the Essendon Fields  website and social media to stay in the loop and celebrate this milestone in our local aviation history. @essendonairport #essendonfields  #essendonfieldsairport

The Essendon Gazette and Flemington Spectator- available on Microfilm Our Local History computer at Sam Merrifield Library has been in need of a facelift, and we are excited to report that it has been upgraded and is now available for all your local history research needs! And with this upgrade comes the good news that our Microfilm and Microfiche collection is back in action!!! There are many resources in this collection that aren’t available elsewhere physically or digitally, and they may hold the missing piece to your research puzzle. The collection includes locally relevant information including newspapers, cemetery records, births, deaths and marriages, land sale notices, and various other indexes. If you’ve never used a microfilm/fiche reader before, there’s no need to worry- there’s a handy step-by-step guide to using the machine in hard-copy next to the computer, and in a PDF file on the PC’s desktop. An example of an Ascot Vale Land Sale Notice on microfilm For some tips and t...

The public library in Moonee Ponds has been known as “Sam Merrifield Library” since the early 1980s, but who was Sam Merrifield? Sam Merrifield, a man dedicated to ideals of fairness, a history fanatic, and a voracious reader, was a very appropriate person to give his name to a public library. Born in 1904 in Moonee Ponds, young Sam struggled with hearing difficulties, but used reading as a way to compensate in his education.  Sam Merrifield worked as a surveyor early in his career, but eventually – influenced both by his experiences during the Depression and the radical politics of his family – he turned to politics. First elected in 1943, when he won the seat of Essendon for the ALP, Merrifield finally retired from politics in 1970. In politics, he is remembered for his quiet tenacity, always representing “the underdog”. Sam Merrifield is also remembered for his enduring commitment to history, especially local history. In the 1960s Merrifield helped establish the Melbourne ...