The Victorian Council of Speech Therapy was registered as a trading company. Although the date of its registration is unknown as at September 1997, the Council is known to have been in existence by 1949 as this is the date of the earliest records extant. It was an association of professional speech therapists. One of the primary functions of the Council was the provision of clinical training for speech therapists. There is some evidence in the surviving annual reports that the Council provided training to speech therapists from all over Australia.

The Council was involved in the establishment of Lincoln House in 1966. Lincoln House incorporated the training schools of the professions of occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech therapy and each of the schools was individually affiliated with the Victorian Institute of Colleges. Its successor, the Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences, was established in 1972 and the Victorian College of Speech Therapy ceased to be registered as a trading company on 24 April 1974.

Prior to 1949 each state had its own speech therapy organisation. In 1949 the Australian Council of Speech Therapy was established as an umbrella body to provide some co-ordination between the states but each state retained its organisational autonomy.

The former Australian Council of Speech Therapy became the Australian Association of Speech and Hearing which was subsequently known as Speech Pathology Australia.

Location of Records

For records of this agency, see list below.

The records attributed to the Council were initially transferred to Lincoln
Institute and then to La Trobe University when it assumed responsibility for courses conducted at the Institute.