Visit Lord Howe Island Museum

A treasure chest of natural history

The Lord Howe Island Museum was established as a community centre to showcase the island’s natural and human history. Opened in 1978, the museum was upgraded in 2001 to a standard befitting the Island’s status as a World Heritage Site.

A hub for locals and visitors alike, the Museum has two display galleries, a café, Visitor Information Centre, shop and lecture room. It’s the perfect place to find out what’s on, learn about the island, purchase locally made souvenirs and enjoy a good cup of coffee.

Our very own Ian Hutton is proud to be the current part time curator of the Museum. He is responsible for the collections in the two galleries. The James Dorman Historical Gallery uses artefacts, models and paintings to tell the story of human history on the Island, dating from 1788. The Ian Kiernan Environmental Gallery uses colourful informative displays to illustrate and explain the geology, flora, fauna and marine life of the island over millennia.

For those wishing to dig deeper, the Museum now holds the world’s largest single collection of books, maps, journals and documents related to Lord Howe Island. In 2003 the Museum began a project to digitise the photo collection and over 5000 photographs and some thousands of documents have been scanned and digitised thus far.

A great place to start your exploration of Lord Howe is with Ian Hutton’s lively presentations about the Island’s history, conservation, flora and fauna. These lectures are usually held twice weekly and you can get precise dates and times and buy tickets here.