The University of Melbourne Archives holds an extensive collection of material relating to Ballarat businesses, organisations and people. These collections include trade unions, businesses and even a few notable documents relating to the Eureka Stockade. Businesses include the Ballarat Woollen and Worsted Mills, Ballarat Brewing Co, Ronaldson and Tippett and JJ Goller. The union collections include the Ballarat Trades and Labour Council, the Ballarat Eight-Hours Day Celebration Committee and numerous branches of individual unions. Other collections of interest include two photographic collections extending back to 1850 (see the business link below), the FW Niven and Walter Bennett collections. Finally, many of Ballarat's finest buildings are held in our architectural collections, in particular JJ and EJ Clark and Bates Smart.

Besides holding a wealth of information about Ballarat's long and colourful history, the union and business collections can be a wonderful source of information for family historians. The membership cards or wage books can reveal information about ancestors that may not be found in official records held at the state archives. For more information about accessing the collections, see our services for researchers webpage.

• Ballarat businesses
• Ballarat unions
• Eureka Stockade
• Other Ballarat collections