We are celebrating the Tamworth Heritage Festival with our fully working John Fowler Steam Engines in action. Join us for an electric and totally FREE Family Fun Day that will thrill the whole family at the Tamworth Powerstation Museum to commemorate the ANZAC Weekend! Book into a 1 hour session on Saturday 24 April between 10am and…
Update 10 October 2020: The Museum has returned to our normal opening hours – Wednesday to Saturday 9am-1pm.
Update 28 August 2020: The Powerstation Museum has taken steps to ensure our staff, community and visitors comply with directives from the NSW Government. To find out what we are doing to make your experience a safe one, click here. We would like to thank everyone for their continued support during these uncertain times.
Update 8 July 2020: The Powerstation Museum will continue to be closed to the public as the Museum is run by a group of fabulous volunteers who are classified as being at greater risk of developing COVID-19 symptoms due to their age. To ensure the safety of these wonderful volunteers the Powerstation Museum will not be opening their doors just yet. However, anyone is more than welcome to contact us for an appointment by calling 02 6767 5248 and we can organise a personal tour.
Initial Statement: Tamworth Powerstation Museum will be closed from Wednesday 18 March, 2020 for the foreseeable future to minimise any possible risks to its mostly elderly volunteers due to the spread of COVID-19.
It is not a decision that has been made lightly. “We are all disappointed that this has had to happen,” said volunteer Ron Greer. “A large number of the people who visit the museum are elderly and many of the volunteers are elderly. Some of our volunteers have health issues which are well managed but it makes them more vulnerable – we have to act in the best interests of everyone’s health.”
Some of the volunteers will continue to work behind closed doors in groups of three or four at a time to continue cataloguing tasks and working to maintain and update displays.
Tamworth Regional Council Director Gallery and Museums, Bridget Guthrie, said the volunteers are passionate about their work at the museum but felt they had no alternative but to step away from their roles temporarily as part of the community-wide measures needed to slow the spread of COVID-19.
The Museum always gets great feedback about our volunteers. They are passionate about Tamworth’s electrical history and many were even involved in setting up the museum in 1988. Visitors to the museum enjoy being taken around by our volunteer guides and for those of you who can’t make it to the museum the following videos…
A K-6 Education Kit that links pre-visit, visit and post-visit activities to syllabus outcomes in Science and History is now available to download here. There is also a downloadable Risk Assessment for School Groups here. Museum volunteers are available to give guided tours. The museum is a significant educational resource illustrating the history, social impact, and evolving technology and…
The Veness Letter Book from the Tamworth PowerStation Museum is now inscribed on the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register. The UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Program is one of the sixty Memory of the World Programs globally. The aims of this program are to: Preserve documentary heritage. Improve accessibility to documentary heritage…
The Night the Lights Went OnAn oral history and other stories from the Tamworth Powerstation Museum.
Written and compiled by Sally Inchbold- Busby.
This publication is an outcome of the research project undertaken by Sally Inchbold-Busby as the 2011 Powerhouse Museum Moveable Heritage Fellowship recipient.
Cover image: Sid Cross changing the light globes, Tamworth, 1933.
A History of the Tamworth Electricity Undertaking and Peel-Cunningham County Council.
Ian R. Lobsey, 1988.
Ronald William Greer ASTC., FIEAust. CPEng, was the Chief Electrical Engineer to the Peel-Cunningham County Council at Tamworth, NSW. In retirement, he is a volunteer on the staff of the Tamworth Powerstation Museum. He was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in 2015.
NDL: Madeline Link – 5 Nov 2020
THE FLICK of the switch that made Tamworth the First City of Light at least 130 years ago will be celebrated with an electric event.
Tamworth’s Powerstation Museum will hold a free, family-friendly event to commemorate the anniversary of the historic milestone, Tamworth Regional Council (TRC) cultural collections officer Namoi Blakey said.
“The fact that Tamworth is the first city in the southern hemisphere to have municipal street lights and the story the museum tells makes it important to the council to hold this event,” she said.
Click on the link to read the whole article.
Tamworth Dramatic Society takes centre stage on story telling
NDL: Jacob McArthur – 11 Nov 2018
TAMWORTH is more than a stage and launching pad for country music and it’s a message being beamed through an amalgam of new technology and old-fashioned story-telling.
This weekend marked 130 years since electric street lights were switched on in Tamworth and the city became the southern hemisphere’s electrically lit in the process.
While it’s a shining claim to fame, the achievement is often outshone.
This year, the Tamworth Dramatic Society took centre stage with a devised piece about story of electric lighting and Tamworth.
Click on the link to read the whole article.
How Tamworth beat the big smoke and became the first city of light
Eleri Mai Harris, based on Professor Genevieve Bell’s Boyer Lectures – October 21, 2017
The first city in Australia to use electric street lights wasn’t Sydney or Melbourne — it was Tamworth. And it all unfolded in a very Aussie kind of way.
Click on the link to read the whole article.
Madeline Lewis – June 15, 2016
A strategic plan has been adopted by council for the Tamworth Power Station Museum.
Click on the link to read the whole article.
Powerstation volunteers receive host of bouquets
NDL: Jamieson Murphy – 15 Jun 2016, 9 p.m.
TAMWORTH Regional councillors have paid tribute to the “superb” volunteers at the Powerstation Museum in approving a strategic plan to secure its future.
Click on the link to read the whole article.
NDL – 25 April 2016
TAMWORTH was once again the City of Light on Friday, as the Powerstation Museum lit up the night with an artwork inspired by the city’s original street lighting plan.
Click on the link to read the whole article.
Vintage love resurrects the past
Kelly Fuller, ABC Radio, 7 December 2015
A love of all things vintage has inspired a push to bring a new audience and new life to an important Australian museum.
Tamworth Powerstation Museum to fire up historic steam engines
NDL – 21 Jan 2016
THINGS are heating up at the Tamworth Powerstation Museum where locals and visitors can see two stationary, historic steam engines all revved-up, with nowhere to go.