News

Local history preserved on Trove

By Christine McKee

Mar 11, 2026

Brittle paper and multiple tears in the 1898 volume of The Yarrawonga Mercury. The 1879 - 1936 editions are now preserved on Trove with donations sought to help digitise the final 18 years up to 1950.

Thanks to the generosity of our community, the Yarrawonga–Mulwala Historical Society’s first digitisation project is complete.

Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content

The Yarrawonga Mercury (1879–1936) is now freely available on Trove, the National Library of Australia’s digital platform, for anyone in the world to search and read.

Over its long run, the Mercury carried many names and served a wide district. Its pages tell the stories of families and communities across Yarrawonga, Mulwala, Tungamah, Lake Rowan, St. James, Burramine, Peechelba, Bundalong and the broader Southern Riverina. Weddings, funerals, football matches, council debates, droughts, floods, two world wars; it’s all there, and it’s all now online.

The missing years

There are gaps as The Mercury didn’t cover every year, and some periods of our history remain invisible online.

That’s where the Yarrawonga Chronicle and Riverina Advocate comes in.

The Historical Society is now raising funds to digitise twelve bound volumes of the Chronicle covering 1893 and 1898–1908, an estimated 4,312 pages of local news, family notices, advertisements, and community life that will fill in the missing years. The State Library Victoria holds Chronicle volumes from 1884 right through to 1950, with more years being identified for future digitisation.

Once this stage is complete, we’ll have digitised 54 of the 72 years from 1879 to 1950, 75 per cent of our local newspaper history.

Just 18 years will remain to complete the full picture.

Fragile pages, precious stories

These volumes are more than 120 years old.

A preservation assessment by the State Library Victoria found brittle paper, significant tears, and failing old repairs, particularly in the 1890s editions.

Several volumes need specialist conservation work before they can even be safely handled for scanning.

Conservation and preparation of the twelve volumes will cost $5,346.

Digitisation and Trove ingestion of 4,312 pages at $1.50 per page is $6,468, so the estimated cost is $11,814

Can You Help?

Every donation, big or small, makes a difference so whether it’s $10 or $1,000, your support goes directly towards preserving the stories of the people and places that built our communities.

Your grandparents’ wedding announcement could be in these pages, or your great-grandfather’s business advertisement, a family member’s name in the local football results.

These are the everyday details that bring our history to life and without your help, they may never see the light of day again.

The Mercury project showed what this community can do and the Historical Society is keen to finish what they started.

Please help us make sure the Chronicle joins it.