More New South Wales Records added to Ancestry.com.au

The recent additions to Ancestry.com.au are:

Registers for the Randwick Asylum for Destitute Children, 1852-1915
This is a collection of more than 6,000 handwritten entries documenting the admission and departure of children in the asylum’s care.

Previously the Society for the Relief of Destitute Children, the Randwick Asylum was first occupied in 1858. Its purpose was to care for abandoned children or children whose parents were considered ‘dissolute characters’. It could house 800 and generally accepted children between the ages of 3 and 10 who weren’t eligible for the orphan schools or whose parents weren’t capable of caring for them. Once admitted, the children stayed in the asylum until they turned 19, were boarded out, or in the case of females – married off.

Built to be self-sustaining, the asylum grounds included a farm where boys were taught farming skills. Many of the children were also offered an apprenticeship with the institution after the age of 12.

With families seemingly so easily broken up once upon a time, the Randwick records are a potentially valuable resource for helping to connect distant relations and paint a picture of a time of significant hardship for many young Australians.In 1915, the last of the children at the asylum were boarded out or sent to cottage style institutions. During World War I, the building was taken over by the Federal Government as a military hospital for wounded and disabled returned servicemen. The Prince of Wales Hospital now stands in its place.

Ancestry.com.au Content Director Brad Argent comments: “Although the asylum was based in Sydney, New South Wales, it housed children from all over the state and possibly from other locations within Australia. For people who are trying to find ancestors who seemed to have disappeared from the records or whose origin is difficult to locate, these registers might provide the missing link.”

These records are available to UK Heritage Plus and World Deluxe members. To find out more about your family’s heritage, please visit www.ancestry.com.au.

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New South Wales, Certificates for Publicans’ Licences, 1830-1849, 1853-1860
This is a collection of publicans’ licenses for public houses in New South Wales between 1830-1860. The collection includes butts of licenses that stretch from 1830-1849 and actual certificates from 1853-1860. The licenses gave different establishments the legal right to sell alcohol.

Not all of the licenses were for alcohol, other uses included confectioners, billiard, night, and packet licenses, but the majority were for public houses or pubs. The licenses had to be paid for and allowed the establishments to “retail wines and malt and spirituous liquors.”

The butts of publican’s licenses include:

– License number
– Date of issue
– Name and address of licensee and sign of the hotel
– Period covered by licence
– Amount of duty received
– Names of licensing justices
– Date and place of meeting of justices authorizing the issue of the license

The certificates for publicans’ licenses include:

– Name of district
– Date of justices’ licensing meeting
– Name of proposed license and type of license issued
– Situation of Public House and sign
– Names and residence of sureties for license
– Signatures of justices