Chifley Home and Education Centre

In a quiet residential street in Bathurst is one of the country’s most intimate museums — the former home of Prime Minister Ben Chifley and his wife, Elizabeth.

Whether your interest runs to Australian politics or you’d like to step back in time, this unique museum and Education Centre provides a glimpse into how the Chifley’s lived, and offers an experience of everyday life in the 1940’s. Its original collection of household furnishings, kitchenware and personal effects date back to when the Chifley’s first occupied the house in 1914.

The home is located in the working-class railway district of Bathurst where Ben himself served twenty-five years as a railway worker before entering Federal Parliament in Canberra in 1928.

Ben and Elizabeth’s home is a testament to the frugalness of the times when the hardships of the Great Depression, wartime rationing and austerity measures, dictated how people led their ordinary lives. The collection also contains an assortment of ceremonial gifts presented to Chifley in his roles as Prime Minister and Treasurer.

This is a house that saw the hardships of the Great Depression, and wartime austerity. From rationing cards still on the kitchen table to Mrs Chifley’s soap saver in the kitchen, 10 Busby Street has little in common with The Lodge or Kirribilli House, and is all the more interesting for it.

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