New South Wales Orphans and Orphanages

Online Resources

 * 1817-1833 - New South Wales, Australia, Applications and Admissions to Orphan Schools, 1817-1833 at Ancestry, index, browse, and images, ($).
 * 1850-1886 - Protestant (Male) Orphan School Register, 1850-1886
 * 1852-1915 - New South Wales, Australia, Registers for the Randwick Asylum for Destitute Children, 1852 - 1915, index, browse, and images, ($).
 * 1867-1911 - New South Wales, Australia, Entrance Books for the Vernon and the Sobraon, 1867-1911, index, browse, and images, ($).

Archive Resources Kit

 * Archive Resources Kit
 * Orphan School Admission registers, 1817-33
 * Applications for admission into and Applications for children out of the Orphan Schools, 1825-33

"The ARK is held by 40 community access points across NSW. The majority of access points are libraries. The ARK consists of microfilm copies of our most popular and heavily used colonial records. Included are records relating to convict arrivals, assisted immigrants, births, deaths and marriages, publicans' licences, electoral rolls, naturalisation, returns of the colony ('Blue Books'), land grants, and the wide range of functions of the Colonial Secretary (1788-1825). You may find that the ARK (or parts of it) are held at a library near you."
 * Community Access Points A list of libraries and archives which hold microcopies of the Archive Resource Kit records

New South Wales State Archives and Records

 * 1850-1886 - Protestant (Male) Orphan School Register, 1850-1886
 * The Protestant (Male) Orphan School Register, 1850-1886 lists over 1,000 boys who were admitted to the school. Boys were usually admitted because one or both parents were dead or unable to care for them. The register is an important document in the history of child care and protection in New South Wales. The register records name, age, date of admission, date of leaving the Institution, parents’ name/s and remarks.


 * 1852-1915 - New South Wales, Australia, Registers for the Randwick Asylum for Destitute Children, 1852 - 1915, index, browse, and images, ($).
 * Randwick Asylum for Destitute Children
 * On 4 June 1852, the Society for the Relief of Destitute Children opened Ormond House in Oxford Street, Paddington for the reception of needy children. The "Society's aim was to care for abandoned children or those whose parents were 'dissolute characters'. Single parents could place children in Ormond House upon the payment of a fixed sum for the child's maintenance. The children were normally between the ages of three and ten years and not eligible for admission to the Orphan Schools. While at Ormond House, they received an industrial training and religious instruction. In its first year 89 children were admitted, however, by 1856 the number had risen to 150. The completion of a new wing in 1863 provided accommodation for a further 400 children. "The State Children Relief Act, 1881 (Act 44 Vic. No. 24, 1881) which commenced on 5 April 1881 authorised any State child under the age of twelve to be removed from an Asylum and boarded-out. Boarding out commenced in 1883, and the number of resident children subsequently declined. After 1888, the Government ceased funding the home and no longer used it as an accommodation for State children. In April 1915 the children remaining at the Asylum were sent to cottage style institutions or boarded-out."