Anglicare Victoria Records

Anglicare Victoria Records is a collection of records dating from 1886. It contains records of people who spent time as children or young people in homes, institutions or other out-of-home care setting provided by Anglicare Victoria or any of its predecessor agencies. The types of records include client files, admission and discharge registers, index cards and annual reports.

Access Conditions

Former residents (and their families) can contact Anglicare Victoria to gain access to records.

Signed consent and photo ID is required for individuals to have access to records. Anglicare Victoria recognises that definitions of what constitutes a ‘family’ vary and can extend beyond biological connections, particularly in Indigenous and culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Individuals wishing to obtain the file of a deceased member of your family to whom are not biologically related, should contact Anglicare Victoria’s Heritage Services Manager for information and guidance.

Former residents are given the original copies of letters addressed to them, school reports and certificates, wages receipts and other receipts of purchases. Anglicare Victoria will keep a copy for their record. The organisation is legally required to keep client files forever. Some former residents have added information to their client file as a way of completing the picture.

Records

Anglicare Victoria Records is a large collection of records that relates to adoption, children and young people in ‘care’, and work performed by the various institutions and facilities run by Anglicare Victoria, and its predecessor agencies. The collection was created in 1997 when records of the various orphanages, homes and other residences run by the three missions, The Mission to the Streets and Lanes, The Mission of St James and St John, and St John’s Homes for Boys and Girls, were transferred to Anglicare Victoria.

The collection includes a range of records including client files, admission and discharge registers, index cards, adoption records and annual reports. The earliest records in the collection are annual reports of the founding agencies.

Records vary in quality depending on the period they originate from and the standards and expectations imposed at the time. Generally, a file from the 1950s has little detail about day to day care arrangements for a child placed in a large children’s home, whereas a 1990s file will include daily case notes about a child in residential care as well as education and medical records.

Due to poor record keeping practices in the past, some client information has been lost or damaged. For example, records were destroyed in a fire in 1973 that burnt the head office of the Mission of St James and St John to the ground in St Kilda Road, Melbourne.

Anglicare Victoria continues to improve access to the records it holds. In 2012, Anglicare Victoria catalogued 22,000 client records which are held in safe storage and can be accessed on request. In 2019, Anglicare Victoria received a Records Access Documentation Grant to survey and catalogue records within this collection.