Thesis (PhD) -- University of Ballarat, 2007.

Includes bibliographic references and appendices.

"The focus of this thesis is to identify and analyse the significance of the contribution made by the Ballaarat Mechanics' Institute to the evolving cultural, educational and social dimensions of the wider Ballarat community. In analysing the level of influence, the thesis considers those factors that can most clearly be identified as as significant, as well as those that are of a more intangible nature. It also reflects on whether the evolution of the Institute in Ballarat was itself influenced by outside events, both in the developing local community and those of a wider national scale. The study focuses on a thirty-year period, from the first discovery of gold in the Ballarat district in 1851 to 1880, by which time the Ballaarat Mechanics' Institute was an established entity, holding an acknowledged position within the developing community. Local demand for a Mechanics' Institute was led by local newspapers, with the Ballarat Star on one occasion describing the need for such an Institute as 'A Public Want and a Public Duty'. These words reaffirm nineteenth-century British cultural ideals of self-help, self-improvement, and the duty owed to those less fortunate." -- Abstract