Item MM 124661 Photograph - Unveiling of a Plaque Commemorating the use of the Exhibition Building as a Hospital, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, 6 Feb 1984

Summary

Colour photograph of the unveiling by the Hon Thomas W. Roper, MLA, Minister of Health (1982-85) of a plaque commemorating the use of the Royal Exhibition Building as a hospital during the influenza outbreak of 1919. Present are the Hon Thomas Roper, MLA, Director of the Exhibition Trustees, John Elden, Chairman of the Trustees, Linton Lethlean, and Ms Muriel Mathers.

This is one of 959 photographs (or images) of the Exhibition Building collated by the Exhibition Trustees as a 10 volume pictorial history of the Exhibition Building spanning the years 1880 to 1985. The pictorial history was instigated by the centenary of the Exhibition Building in 1980 and forms part of a larger Royal Exhibition Building collection of documents, photographs, objects and research files.

Description of Content

Party of three men and a woman, two either side, at the unveiling of a plaque commemorating the use of the Royal Exhibition Building as a temporary hospital during the 1919 influenza outbreak.

Physical Description

A colour photographic print on a page of a photograph album. There is a printed caption below the photograph.

Significance

The Exhibition Trustees' album containing this photograph provides an invaluable visual record of past maintenance and restoration work undertaken on the Royal Exhibition Buildings prior to the building being recognised with a World Heritage Listing in 2004.