Military records and your State archives.

The purpose of this paper is to try to make members aware of the types of military records they may find in their State archives offices and to give some examples that exist within South Australia. It is also hoped that these few notes might inspire some of our members and readers to utilise these resources to support their interests in Australian military history and to maybe encourage submission of articles for Sabretache. Using your State archives is not such a daunting prospect as it may appear, but there are a few basic preliminaries that you will have to come to terms with in searching government records. One of the most helpful is to get an understanding of how their ministries and bureaucracies were structured.

Who was responsible for what, who paid the bills, what social and political structures and facilities did the colonies have etc. etc. In my own case, I started using the State archives to research military small arms purchases of the colonial period. After a couple of rather naive false starts I began to learn how to use the archives. I gradually became much more aware of how the governments of the day operated (or tried to operate), the variety of material held and ultimately and, more importantly perhaps, where to look and how to cross-reference files between one office and another.

Following a redeployment I was transferred to State Records of South Australia and enjoyed about 4 years of direct access to the records and the in-house location guides and non-public data. This became a really fruitful time for me both as an employee and as a researcher and I hope also that my part in the organisation was seen as being beneficial to the well-being of the records. As a consequence, of course, I can really only speak with any authority on the colony of South Australia and the records held by our State archives, but you will find common threads running through government archives everywhere. These few notes might just help you broaden your searches to find those extra gems of information that fill so many gaps in research. But a word of warning--while you may strike success in finding mention of the information you seek, be prepared to follow quite a paper trail before you reach the subject conclusion. You may be lucky and find a direct line to what you are looking for, but you may also find that you will have to apply a bit of lateral thinking before you actually find the trail.

As many or all of you are aware, South Australia was a planned province and Adelaide a planned city. Many aspects of bureaucracy and governance were at least theoretically in place before the first vessels left England. In December 1836 the colony was formally proclaimed but of course the Province's documented history precedes that date. But among the earlier military records held (which vary considerably to a greater or lesser degree) we find references to such things as the Royal Marine detachment that escorted the first Governor of the Province. A year or two later, the arrival of the first of the Corps of Royal Sappers and Miners, shortly followed in 1841 by the first of a number of detachments of the British Army's Line Regiments. Records for the local Volunteer and Militia Corps, first raised in 1839, are reasonably extensive but of course somewhat disjointed and with considerable gaps. Purchases of arms, accoutrements and uniforms are also documented, as are the unfortunate members of the military who earned a berth in gaol for a wide variety of both military and domestic misdemeanours. You may find Storekeeper's Returns and plans of rifle ranges; photographs of barrack buildings or samples of uniform cloth; plans of forts and reports of defence schemes, lf you wish to get down to a personal level and want to find out a little of the genealogy or biography of an individual, there are the Births, Marriages and Deaths indexes; Trade and Statistical Directories that may tell where an individual lived or operated his business. And sometimes you may have recourse to sift through the files created by the police, or the records of hospitals, asylums or coroners to locate the last vestiges of that individuals life.

I might digress here briefly with another caution. You may come across access restrictions to some records. Such restrictions, or embargos, may be in place to protect the privacy of individuals named in the records (mainly, of course, because they may still be alive); or because access is still controlled by the administering department which has intellectual ownership of the records. As an example, although State Records of SA maintains bound volumes of certificates for Birth, Marriage and Death registrations, access to information from these records can only be done through the office of the Registrar. However, indexes compiled from these records by the Archives office or by genealogical societies, which might give a name and a reference number, are available as public documents. These will usually give sufficient information that can then be submitted direct to the Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths (not the Archives) when seeking a copy of a particular certificate (usually for a fairly exorbitant fee). Similarly, some Police, Prisons and Coronial records are subject to embargos of up to 60 years or more from a given date (usually that of the date the file was created). Thus written departmental permission has to be obtained before you can access any files which fall within the embargo period. Archival staff will advise you of any such restrictions or processes.

In South Australia, and I suspect in all or most of the other colonies, a vast amount of military matters passed through the office of the Chief or Colonial Secretary. The Chief Secretary was essentially head of the Legislature (prior to the introduction of the office of State Premier) and the initial recipient of correspondence or reports on military matters from both the public and the bureaucracy. The Governor also maintained regular correspondence with the Colonial Office in London, which in its turn became the clearing house for correspondence to be handled by other departments or Ministers. Another important link in the bureaucratic chain was the colony's Treasurer--the office that administered the financial affairs of government and often was responsible for paying the bills. Within the Treasurer's department was the Audit Office--the office that reviewed expenditure of government departments, their purchases and their contracts with private individuals or commercial organisations. An office that was very important in the procurement of military (and non-military) material from overseas was that of the Colonial Agent or Agent General. The office was usually based in England and was the mediator and purchasing agent between the colonial government and the suppliers of arms, equipments, medals, uniform accessories & insignia etc., be they the War Office, commercial manufacturers or retailers.

In South Australia many of the files relevant to the Corps of Royal Sappers and Miners are to be found in the records of the Surveyor General's Office, which was under the blanket administration of the Commissioner for Crown Lands. After all, this is why the Sappers and Miners came to the colony--to assist in surveying land prior to its sale that was necessary to finance the selected immigration of labour. Indeed, between 1839 and 1860 the Surveyors General (E.C. Frome, followed by Sir Arthur Freeling) were both officers of the Royal Engineers who supervised and administered the men of the Sappers and Miners as both soldiers and surveyors and, later, as civilian employees of the Lands Department. I suspect that references to the Sappers and Miners in other colonies may be found in holdings relevant to Public Works, land surveys, mines, bridge-building etc.

Records relating to the British line regiments are again largely found in the correspondence files of the Chief (or Colonial) Secretary and the Governor, including one small but excellent Series which contains a good number of 'Effective State' returns of a number of different regiments. This Series also contains a number of files relevant to the local volunteers and I suspect that the whole lot was originally filed in the Chief Secretary's Office as a 'Miscellaneous Military' conglomeration. Similarly, I suggest you check the prison registers prior to 1870 for British military personnel--in South Australia, in the absence of any specific military prison, deserters and other miscreants usually served any prison sentence in the civilian gaols. These can give a good statistical picture, on a number of levels, of the men of a regiment. Much of the correspondence on military matters between the Officer Commanding a British Army detachment and the local government officers are of a purely day-to-day administrative type, not infrequently concerned with money; payment for extra services, modifications to food and fuel rations, complaints over barrack accommodation or required alterations etc. Printed Parliamentary Papers can also be a good source of information on the British garrison forces and these are usually available in your State Library as well as the archives office. It may be that your archives hold microfilms of the Australian Joint Copying Project (AJCP) and many British Army regimental records form part of this project. However, different States have them in different institutions, so the microfilms may be held in either your State Archives, State Library or by one of the University libraries. The South Australian archives have a few of the first microfilms produced under this project, but a full set (around 10,000 reels) is held by Flinders University.

Local Volunteer and Militia Corps records are often to be found in State archive offices and these are particularly popular with researchers who are following their family history. Because of their popularity, they are frequently indexed or otherwise listed which makes initial research much easier for the researcher provided you have a name to look for. The South Australian archives have a fine (but disjointed) collection of parchment volunteer rolls covering the period 1859 to around 1886. These were apparently donated to the SA Archives by the Commanding Officer of Keswick Barracks a good many years ago and were probably initially passed to the Commonwealth military authorities along with other military records after the Commonwealth took over responsibility for matters of defence in 1901. South Australia was fortunate indeed that these records came back to the care of the State. The details from these files (about 10,000 names) have all been indexed and are available on line by name search. Other important or detailed files of this nature are found in the correspondence files of the Chief Secretary and of the Governor. The study of local volunteer corps is one instance where the Government Gazette makes its presence felt. Many appointments, promotions or dismissals of individuals in the local volunteers may be found in the Government Gazette (or whatever the official journal of government notices is called elsewhere), together with enrolment figures, details of raising or disbanding corps or companies, changes in naming of corps etc. The South Australian publication is very rich in this regard, and I suspect this may also be the case in other States. Similarly, archives offices usually hold sets of Statutes (Acts of Parliament) in which can be found the laws governing the raising and administration of local volunteers and militiamen, while Regulations under these Acts are usually to be found in the Government Gazettes. These official publications are most likely available through your State Reference Library also.

Pre-Federation records of local Volunteer and Militia corps may be held as a separate Series or as a sub-Series within a ministry or department. But there may also be useful alternative references. Check the early Government, Trade or Business Almanacs or directories. They may well have entries under the title of Local Forces that can often give not only the names of principal officers and branches of the military forces, but sometimes may even include a complete roll of enrolled volunteers. Places of drill for different localities or numbers enrolled in different companies may also be found. These directories can also include brief entries concerning British Regiments stationed in the colony.

If your interests cover such areas as school patriotic funds or cadet corps, don't ignore the records of your State Education Department. Careful analysis of these records can be very rich in such material, including files from the ministerial level down to the records of individual schools. Similarly, departmental gazettes, which in South Australia were issued to individual teachers, can also contain a considerable amount of information on these activities. Whilst on the subject of the Education Department, some excellent files have been discovered in South Australia discussing the supply of WW1 military trophies such as German machine guns and other small arms. These files include such detail as lists of trophies (complete with serial numbers or other identifying detail) and the names of schools that have applied for or been issued with a trophy.

Photographic collections can also be very helpful in providing images of a military nature, particularly where a government department has compiled the collection. Again, good indexes are almost essential with large photographic holdings and most archival collections will be found to be well provided with such. I believe there is a large photographic collection in the archives or State Library of NSW that came from that State's old Government Printing Office. How well it is indexed I have no idea, but I understand it contains some fine military images. A large photographic collection is held in State Records of SA among the files of the Commissioner of Crown Lands and Immigration. Most of these images date from the late 1890's to the 1930's, but amongst the few military images in the collection are a number of glass negatives showing Adelaide's Keswick Barracks under construction circa 1910.

Although archives offices all use basically the same principles in recording and listing their holdings, the style or manner of these listings often varies; but the researcher will usually pick up the search process quite quickly with the aid of the archives staff. But using the search guides and Series listings etc. will generally only take you to the obvious files. Most government correspondence files are (or were) indexed, and where these indices exist it will greatly facilitate your research. If correspondence files are not indexed it can be a long slow process to find what you are looking for. Sometimes you may need to start looking at the copy books, which are volumes of copies of letters sent (often in reply to a letter received earlier) and which are usually indexed and sometimes cross referenced. These can often lead the researcher back to find the subject correspondence he was looking for in the first place.

In these days of computers and electronic filing, most archive offices are instituting on-line search processes, digital copying and other electronic document management methods. The extent of these programs vary from State to State (and Commonwealth) and the level to which these systems are introduced is largely dependent on money. The South Australian archives is only now embarking on the road to electronic archival management, digitising of images and on-line searching, while the Commonwealth and some other State archival collections are up and running with very efficient programs. While these computer based searches can be very good, they can sometimes only be searched in one way, such as, key in a name. But even if that name appears on the data base it may not immediately give you access to all the information held in the date base on that individual--only what the author thinks you may initially need. You then have to plunge deeper and deeper through the system or perhaps retrieve the original manuscripts before you can access all the data you're looking for. In my opinion there is nothing like the original paper files to let you see all there is to see and to help you feel that you are really, literally, touching history. But in conservation terms we have to realise that every time a piece of paper is handled its lifetime is shortened. Somewhat incongruously perhaps, the older paper is often likely to survive longer than paper produced in an era of mass production. There are many instances where volumes or files from the 1890's or the 1920's have had to be restricted due to preservation concerns than papers that go back to the days of the earliest settlers. Some holdings may have been transferred to microfilm or microfiche and the originals are only made available (often under special conditions) if the print is unclear. There is no doubt that electronic data base files are here to stay and there is no disputing their value. We can only hope that access can become easier or at least less frustrating by improving some of the computer based data systems that are used at present. At present digitising of documents seems to be the best way forward but, given the fact that archives offices measure their holdings by shelf kilometres, generally only the most regularly used material is considered for transfer to this method.

While State archives offices will usually hold military material mostly of the pre-Federation period (post-1901 military records are usually a Commonwealth interest), you may still find some post-Federation holdings within your State Archives. Indeed, and again in South Australia, some post-Federation correspondence files have been noted concerning arms and equipment belonging to the Commonwealth, but these are under discussion because the arms are housed in State owned buildings. South Australia has one or two rather spectacular post-Federation military Series. One example is a collection of just under 3000 images of WW1 soldiers complete with biographical, unit and awards details which was initiated in 1919 by the State Library. Another comprises copies of nominal rolls of the 3rd, 9th and 11th Light Horse Regiments of the AIF in presentation bindings, while yet another small Series is a group of original sketch maps of trenches of the 9th Light Horse on Gallipoli, 1915. Among the records of the Correctional Services (i.e. Prisons) Department are found a few WW1 and WW2 Commitment Warrants of miscreant military personnel.

There is one area of public records that should not be overlooked and this is those created by Local Government; our suburban and country cities and towns. Again, State Records of SA has a considerable collection of local government holdings, although more recently some of these local authorities have been tending to retain their records and create their own archives. But trawling through the series lists of local government, besides the many volumes of rates books and minute books, of road sealing contracts and reports of health inspectors, many little military-related gems can be found. Again, much of the success of searching these holdings can be dependent on the level of Series Listing or indexing, but it is always worth checking out. Examples in the South Australian archives include Honour Roll boards from now defunct council offices. The records of a local Branch of the WW2 Soldiers, Sailors and Airmens Fathers Association. Photographs of a Bren Gun Carrier, the cost of manufacture of which was financed by local donations, have been noted; also accounts of donations towards the cost of local war memorials. It is also beneficial to look through these local government series for photographs of military officers or personnel. Why? Because you may find a group photo of the local volunteer rifle company or Light Horse troop or, similarly, there are cases where Capt. so and so was elected to the local Council and there is his photograph, in uniform, which previously hung in the Council Chambers.

Civil Defence is another area that may be of interest to military or war historians, and these records will most likely be found in your State archives as Civil Defence matters were largely organised on a State and regional basis. South Australia has a complete Series dedicated to the records of the Civil Defence Commission of WW2, while another Series contains the papers of the State War Council, covering mostly WW1 but also disjointedly running up to WW2. This Series includes some 50 or 60 original WW1 recruitment posters, mostly produced within the State. Similarly a number of the Local Government Series also contain groups of civil defence files relative to the local township or borough.

So perhaps you can see how your State Archives may be able to fit in with your specific interest in military history, regardless of whether it lies in the colonial or post-Federation era. I realise that for those already familiar with primary source research there is nothing new in this presentation. But if you have never tried research previously, or if your sources have only ever been previously published material from your local library, give your State Archives a try--you will be very surprised at what you will find. A few notes and a couple of drafts and you will join the ranks of our Sabretache contributors.

Good luck!