The Infants' Home, Ashfield, Records is a collection of records created by The Infants' Home between 1874 and 2002 and held by the State Library of New South Wales.This collection consists of registers and lists of resident children, children's admission and discharge information, child health records, family records files, historical and operational records and minutes.
Former residents of The Infants' Home or members of their families can apply to The Infants' Home to be provided with copies of their records. Physical access to The Infants' Home's historical records is not permitted due to the fragility of the material and the need to protect confidentiality of other people mentioned. Applications can be made via a form on the 'History' page of The Infants' Home website.
The records are held in three separate manuscript collections at the State Library of New South Wales as the records were transferred at three different times - in 1975, 1995 and 2004. Records in this collection have been digitised and indexed by The Infants' Home as part of the Records Access Documentation Grants in 2017.
The collection includes the following records:
Registers and Lists, 1874-1976 (incomplete)
Various volumes record the names of children residing in the home. The registers take on different formats over time. These records are not continuous - there are many time periods where there is no surviving register.
Individual Children's Records, 1950-1991 (two formats)
Minutes, 1874-1978
Minutes contain information on many topics including; operational issues; staffing issues; correspondence; financial reports; and the fortnightly Matrons Report to the committee. At times the Matron's Report includes a list of children admitted and discharged that fortnight, as well as any health issues surrounding the children. In the earlier minutes (1800's and early 1900's) there are often notes about individual cases that were presented to the committee for consideration. These often contained a brief history of a woman and her child seeking admittance, and contain information including the names of her parents of the child's father.
Historical and Operational Records, 1874-2002
Approximately 50 volumes including:
Sources used to compile this entry: 'Infants' Home (Ashfield, N.S.W.) further records, 1875-2002', in Manuscripts, Oral History and Pictures Catalogue, State Library of New South Wales, http://archival.sl.nsw.gov.au/Details/archive/110323917; 'Infants' Home (Ashfield, N.S.W.) further records, 1950-1973', in Manuscripts, Oral History and Pictures Catalogue, State Library of New South Wales, http://archival.sl.nsw.gov.au/Details/archive/110356483; 'Infants' Home (Ashfield, N.S.W.) records, 1874-1966', in Manuscripts, Oral History and Pictures Catalogue, State Library of New South Wales, http://archival.sl.nsw.gov.au/Details/archive/110319724; Email correspondence with The Infants' Home, 2017 as a result of the Records Access Documentation Grants - a copy of the email is held in the Find & Connect Project project (FACP) files at the University of Melbourne eScholarship Research Centre.
Prepared by: Nicola Laurent
Created: 15 December 2014, Last modified: 11 February 2019