Employment Applications

APPLICATIONS FOR EMPLOYMENT IN THE VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT IN THE  19TH CENTURY.

By Helen D. Harris, OAM.

This web page lists basic details of people who wrote to various Victorian government departments, in the 19th century, seeking employment in the Victorian public service. I have already indexed, and published, a list of all those who sought employment in the police department during this time, compiled from police correspondence files, held at the Public Record Office. Those microfiche indexes are still available, and can be purchased from Harriland Press by clicking on that website. In addition there are some applications to join the police department on both the Index to Missing People and Index to Criminal & Other Case Files web pages.

The list below is taken from other government department records, found as I was researching another project. It is by no means a complete record of all those who wrote seeking employment, merely those I have come across to date. The list will be added to as time permits.

Like all correspondence, the amount of detail in the applications for employment varies considerably, from a simple formal application of a few lines, to a detailed listing of the applicant’s previous employment and personal history.  Some files consist of one or two pages only, while in others the file can run to over 20 pages, as the applicant renews their application more than once.

As in my other web pages, I am happy to arrange copying of a file; details of how to do this are below.

SEARCH EMPLOYMENT APPLICATIONS INDEX

ARRANGING COPIES OF THE FILES:

Please note that I do not have this material in my possession; it is held at the Public Record Office.   As the PRO are now phasing out photocopies,  and have a digital camera available for researchers, I will only be offering digital copies.  The various pricing options available for an individual file are:

$55 to copy up to 20 pages and deliver to you via a File Transfer system.
$60 to copy up to 20 pages, burn to a CD and post to an address in Australia.
$68 to copy up to 20 pages, copy to a USB stick and post to an address in Australia.
An additional fee would be payable for bigger files; a discount is available for multiple requests.

I am also willing to provide the reference so that a researcher can visit the PRO and view the material themselves, but do ask the minimum fee of $45 to provide this information, as I’ve spent hundreds if not thousands of hours over many years compiling the information.

PAYMENT ARRANGEMENTS:

1. Note the names, date and detail of the file, including the number of pages involved.
2. Either send a cheque in Australian Dollars made out to Harriland Press to PO Box 92, Forest Hill, Victoria, Australia, 3131, or email me to obtain details for a direct credit to our account. If  you wish to send a cheque in a foreign currency please allow $Aust15 bank fee. 
3. Remember to supply your own address, including if possible, an email address.
4. You will be emailed when your letter arrives and again when the copies are sent. My email address is hdh1[at]ozemail.com.au (you will need to remove the ‘at’ and replace with @).

When someone requested a file I have kept a note of their details, and placed a CONNECTION FOUND next to the relevant entry.  If in the future someone else requests the same file, I put the two researchers in touch with one another.  As this webpage is now some twenty years old however, I have found that many of the older email addresses are no longer working, so have discarded those references, and the ‘Connection Found’ entry  prior to 2016.