NRS-796 | Male Orphan School Admission Books

Full description

The Rules and Regulations established for the management of the Male Orphan School stipulated amongst the records that the Committee was required to make and maintain were “the Names and Ages of the Orphans now admitted or that may hereafter be admitted into the Institution; adding thereto the Names, Designations, and places of residence of the surviving Parents or Guardians of the Children; and carefully noting down the date of admission, Apprenticeship, Discharge, or Death of each Orphan so admitted” (1) Admission Books evolved to satisfy this part of the recordkeeping responsibilities of the Committee.

Internally the registers are arranged chronologically by date of admission to the Orphan School and contain the information required by the rules. The entries in the registers were arranged into the following columns – [admission] number; age; when admitted; Time of Quitting School; Parents' name; [parents'] occupation; [parents'] residence; and remarks. Details regarding the destination after leaving the school were entered in the last column. The exact labelling of the columns varies slightly from copy to copy of the Admission Books described hereafter.

The surviving records in this series consist of a possible original register and a number of contemporaneous partial transcriptions. It would seem that the copies were made when the information contained in the registers was required by various government officials.

It would appear that the original register is that in the Mitchell Library, Sydney [ML C200] that covers the period 1819 - 1847.

The two items of this series held by State Archives appear to be partial copies of this item covering the period
1819 - 1833 (admission numbers 1 - 379); and
1819 - 1828 (admission numbers 1 - 242)

Another copy survives in the Colonial Secretary's records (also held by State Archives). This covers the period 1819 - 1824 (admissions 1 - 117) [State Archives Reference: NRS 898, 4/7208]

Custody history:
The series was transferred from the Chief Secretary's Department to the Public Library of New South Wales in 1934. From thence they were transferred to the then Archives Authority of New South Wales.

Endnotes
1. NRS 794 [4/400] p.3 - Rules and Regulations No. 5.