Icon Christmas Greetings, public domain photograph

The Australian War Memorial combines a shrine, a museum, and an extensive archive. Its collections, commemorative ceremonies, exhibitions and research help Australians remember, interpret, and understand the Australian experience of war and its enduring impact on Australian society. It was in August 1916 that Charles Bean, then the Australian official war correspondent, and later the official historian, developed the idea for a memorial museum. The organisation of the collection began in May 1917 under John Treloar, a young army officer who was later appointed Director of the Memorial. He laid the foundation for all of the Memorial’s collections, which include objects, works of art, photographs, film, sound recordings, official and personal records, books, maps, and ephemera. The collection includes material from 1789 to the present.