NRS-783 | Applications for children out of the Orphan Schools

Full description

The series was created to ensure that the children were not removed from the Schools except in accordance with their constitutions. In particular the Rules and Regulations required that the children once admitted remained at the school or in apprenticeship until they reached the age of 18 years (females) or 21 years (males). (1) The Rules also provided that girls could be released to apprenticeships ‘as servants or otherwise’ at the age of 13 and at the age of 15 boys could be apprentices as ‘mechanics or Servants to Settlers’. (2)

This series consists of the applications for children out of the orphan schools and most of the extant records were created during the period that the schools were administered by the Trustees of the Clergy and School Lands Corporation. It is likely that the series spanned the entire period of operation of the orphan schools and that some of the series has not survived.

These volumes comprise letters, memorials and petitions addressed to the Orphan School committee by prospective employers wanting apprentices, and by parents or guardians requesting that children be returned to their custody.

The petitions are in manuscript, and were at some stage bound into volumes, however the binding was removed to enable the petitions to be microfilmed. The petitions are in chronological order.

This series of records was transferred from the Public Library of New South Wales, and previously from the Lands Department 12 December 1919 and 16 December 1937.

The following publication draws heavily upon this record series:
John Ramsland, Children of the Backlanes: Destitute and neglected children in colonial New South Wales, Kensington, New South Wales University Press, 1986

Endnotes
1. Rules and Regulations Established for the future Management and Improvement of the Female Orphan Institution … 30 June 1818. Clause 11 [NRS 792]; and Rules and Regulations established for the Management of the Male Orphan Institution commencing from its establishment on the First of January 1819 Clause 10 [NRS 794].
2. Op. Cit. clauses 12 and 11 respectively.