59 community-led organisations have received a 2023 Community Heritage Grant. Recipients include Australian Red Cross Heritage Archives, Woolmers Foundation, Broken Hill Historical Society, Australian Sugar Industry Museum, The Ration Shed Museum, Buda Historic Home & Garden, the Callaway Centre and many others.
In 2021, the volunteers of the ACT Fire Brigade Historical Society were thrilled to receive a Community Heritage Grant to preserve the Canberra Fire Museum collection.
Applications are now open for the 2022 Community Heritage Grants (CHG) program.
The CHG program offers cash grants of up to $15,000 to community organisations including historical societies, regional museums, archives, galleries and libraries. The grants support organisations to preserve and manage collections that have Australian cultural and historical significance.
A streamlined application process is being launched in 2022 and a wide variety of community organisations are encouraged to apply, including Indigenous and multicultural organisations.
Good as new… the restored 1913 Hotchkiss fire engine. Photo: Belinda Strahorn
BRASS helmets used by Canberra’s first firefighters; a 1913 Hotchkiss vintage fire engine, lovingly restored; an original fire alarm system with bells for all the buildings in Canberra and a hand-drawn fire cart used in Queanbeyan in 1893…
These artifacts are among the thousands of pieces of firefighting memorabilia housed at the Canberra Fire Museum, in the old Forrest fire station.
Retired firefighter and ACT Fire Brigade Historical Society volunteer Ron Hourigan says the collection of fire paraphernalia offers a rare glimpse into the early days of firefighting in the nation’s capital and is definitely “worth a look”.