Melbourne hotels & pubs

Question: My grandmother was licensee of the Federal Club Hotel on Elizabeth Street from 1908 until 1913. How can I find more information about the hotel?

Answer: Here are some resources to help start your research into the history of licensed hotels in Melbourne; many are also useful for tracing the history of other businesses. Establish the address of the business first and also use this to search archival material - the establishment may only be listed under its address and many hotel names changed regularly.

    ·         Cole/Tetlow Index – State Library of Victoria (SLV)
         Over 21,000 names of hotel licensees from the Robert K Cole collection
         of hotel records.

    ·         Sands & McDougall Melbourne Directories – SLV
         Get an idea of the history of the site by examining the address year by
         year. Also contains business directories and advertisements.

    ·         Trove – National Library of Australia (NLA)
         Explore historic newspaper articles (1803 – 1954) for mention of
         businesses and/or ancestors.

    ·         Public Record Office of Victoria (PROV) 
         Search records related to hotels and other businesses in which you might
         find information.  

    ·        Victorian Births, Deaths and Marriages information resources (NLA) 
         Lists other useful family history resources that might assist with research.

    ·     Picture Australia and other photo websites
        Look at old photos of the street as you may find the business in these
        scenes.

Many of these records will be fairly fragmentary pieces of information, but may help you develop a picture of the history of the business and, perhaps, the licensee.