BMI 165th Birthday Devonshire Tea Party – Ballarat Heritage Festival

As the Institute is 165 years old this year, they will take the opportunity to celebrate during the festival, by including a heritage-style Devonshire Tea as an afternoon Birthday Party, the first of many celebratory events for 2024.

Talk Subject: Claire Adams & Mooramong. Speaker: Susan Pilbeam.

Born in Canada in 1898, Claire Adams was a silent movie star and a role model for ‘the new woman’ of the 1920s. She was an innovator, world traveler, conservationist and philanthropist.

In London, on April Fools day 1932, she married Scobie Mackinnon of Mooramong, near Skipton. Together they renovated the house in Hollywood Art Deco style, with no expense spared. This illustrated talk, tells her story and includes images from the National Trust collection, showing her delight in entertaining, on and off screen.

Susan Pilbeam has been working on the Mooramong Collection since 2016. She studied Museums and Cultural Heritage and researched and lectured in the Visual and Performing Arts. She has worked in Arts administration, been a community artist and theatre director. She is the Artistic Director of The Bard in Buninyong.