findingrecords.dhhs.vic.gov.au

Mercy Maternity Hospital

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This guide contains information that some people may find distressing. If you experienced abuse as a child or young person in an institution mentioned in this guide, it may be a difficult reading experience. Guides may also contain references to previous views, policies and practices that are regrettable and do not reflect the current views, policies or practices of the department or the State of Victoria. If you find this content distressing, please consult with a support person either from the Department of Health and Human Services or another agency.

List of records held by the department

For information relating to the central management of care leavers and wards of state, please consult the guide Central department wardship and out-of-home care records. These collections date back to the 1860s and include ward registers, index cards and ward files.


Former Adoption Agency Records (1920–97)

File; Unappraised

Content: The Adoption Act 1984 allowed approved agencies to arrange and negotiate the adoption of children. It also required that agencies keep certain records.
If an agency’s approval or operations ceased, their records were to be forwarded to the Secretary of the Department.

The Act also required the Department to establish an adoption information service (AIS) with access to both records created by the Department and the records of the former approved agencies. The adoption records now held by the Department were created by as many as 30 different adoption agencies that were in operation at different times. After the AIS was formed, circa 1985, it gathered the records of the various agencies, numbered the files sequentially with an “A” prefix and created a full index.

Other AIS unnumbered adoption files and card indexes were also transferred at a later date. The records management unit allocated these records different numbering systems to distinguish between the card indexes from the files. The categories of files were grouped by the adoption agency they related to and the function of the file. Some of the file sequences also hold an "A" prefix as adoption files. However, the numbering system is separate to the first collection transferred from the AIS.

Content of files will vary but may include.

  • Application to Adopt forms
  • documents and correspondence supporting applications
  • Consent to Adopt and correspondence
  • legal documents
  • birth certificates
  • photographs

There are two sequences of files attributed to the Mercy Maternity Hospital:

  • adoptive parents files: file numbers A10412 to A11609
  • birth mother files: file numbers A11701 to A12699.

There may also be additional files relating to Mercy Maternity Hospital outside of these number ranges.


Mercy Maternity Hospital Index to Adoptions (1971–85)

Card; Temporary

The Mercy Maternity Hospital Adoptions Index comprises photocopied pages held in a plastic file cover. The volume holds copies of indexes under different categories.

The first index with the stamp “Mercy Maternity Hospital Clarendon Street East Melbourne 3002” is titled “Relinquishing Mothers 4/8/89”.
The index is in a column format with:

  • surname and first names of birth mother
  • the date of birth of child
  • initial of gender, either M or F
  • alphanumeric card reference, for example C20.

The second index with the stamp “Mercy Maternity Hospital Clarendon Street East Melbourne 3002” is titled “Adoptive Parents 1/8/89”.
The index is a column format with:

  • surname and initials of both adoptive parents
  • the date of the adoption or birth of child
  • initial of gender, either M or F
  • the initial of their original birth mother’s name
  • alphanumeric card reference, for example C20.

A section of pages after the indexes comprise handwritten column entries detailing the adoption parent’s details, linked to the alphanumeric card/file reference.
These entries are arranged under the following headings:

  • no heading [alphanumeric reference]
  • Surname
  • Husband (first names, date of birth, place of birth)
  • Wife (first names, date of birth, place of birth)
  • Marriage (date, place)
  • Other Children (names and dates of birth)
  • Application Received (date)

The next section of page entries relates to the relinquishing mother.
The information is divided under the following column headings:

  • Mother’s Name
  • Baby’s name
  • Birth (date)
  • Alive (Yes / No)
  • Religion
  • Nurse
  • Discharge (date of mother)
  • Person discharged to (?)
  • No (telephone number)
  • Suburb
  • Date
  • Return (date)
  • Address (birth mother residing)

Reviewed 19 September 2016