Provenance is the journal of Public Record Office Victoria, the archives of the State Government of Victoria. Hot off the (digital) presses, its 2015 issue features an article written by Find & Connect’s editor, Cate O’Neill. Cate writes about the tragic story of ‘Jill’, a state ward who spent time in a range of Victorian institutions from 1952 until her untimely death in 1955. Jill’s story illuminates many aspects of the system for ‘delinquent girls’ in Victoria in the 1950s, a system which came under widespread criticism when the public found out that Jill and other teenage girls were being held in Pentridge Prison. You can read the article here.
The 2015 issue features other articles that may be of interest to readers of Find & Connect. There is an article about Melbourne’s ‘ragged school’ system, and an article about the history of the Bundoora Repatration Mental Hospital. It also features an article by Jacquie Browne about her research in the state archives, to solve a 120 year old ‘family history mystery‘.
As always, the current issue of Provenance demonstrates the wealth of information that state archives contain about people, places, organisations and events, and showcases the broad range of ways that researchers make use of these records.
