Items medium note

This series consists of a register of enrolments in the Naval Forces between 1884 and 1911 in the Colony of Victoria and Commonwealth of Australia.

This one volume which is extant has "Victorian Naval Forces Enrolment Book" printed on the cover. Each page is headed Enrolment Sheet of Victorian Naval Forces and contains an extract of Clause 4 of the Military and Naval Discipline Act under which appears personal details of each enrolee.

The period of enrolment varies between 6 months and 6 years.

This series consists of a register of enrolments in the Naval Forces of the Colony of Victoria and the Naval Forces of the Commonwealth of Australia. The register consists of one volume extant and it is not known whether there are any more volumes in this series.

The volume has a suede cover and embossed in gold on red panels on the spine and front cover is printed "Victorian Naval Forces Enrolment Book".
At the top of each page is the Coat of Arms of Victoria and then the headings "Naval and Military Forces in the service of Her Majesty's Government in Victoria","Naval Branch-Regular Service" and "Enrolment Sheet of Victorian Naval Forces".

There is then an extract of Clause 4 of the Military and Naval Discipline Act ie: an oath.

The remainder of each page is divided into columns headed:

• Signature of Persons Subscribing to the above Oath,
• Number,
• Age,
• Height(feet and inches),
• Occupation or Profession,
• Signature of the Justice or Commissioned Officer administering the Oath and Date when sworn.

For entries up to 21 September 1900 the oath is as follows: "I, the undersigned, do swear that l will well and truly serve our Sovereign Lady the Queen in the Victorian Naval Forces for the period [ ] Year, or until sooner legally discharged, dismissed or removed, and that l will oppose and resist Her Majesty's enemies and cause Her Majesty's peace, etc". The entries from 1901 have the words 'Her Majesty' and 'Victorian' replaced in most cases by 'His Majesty's' and 'Commonwealth', by a typed amendment pasted on the page or handwritten in ink.

The period of enrolment alternates between pages from six months to five years and also includes one and six year periods in the pre-1895 entries. The actual period of enrolment for each naval member is noted in the number coloumn and in the oath. The register was tabulated into five year and six months entries between 1895 and 1901 with large tabs attached at the relevant section of the register. All the entries post 1901 have a 3 year enrolment period.

There are several gaps in the register. On some pages the entries cover more than the one year depending on the neatness of the bookkeeping. The 1901 entries appear after the 1911 entries. The reason is unknown. There are loose papers within the register and many pencil annotations in different colours.

This volume was apparently held at the Williamstown Naval Depot until th depot was closed on 15th June 1921. It was then tranferred to the Williamstown Naval Reserve Depot where it remained until that depot was closed on 21 September 1956 and was subsequenmtly transferred to archival custody by the Naval Staff Officer, Port Melbourne, which had taken over the records of the Williamstown Depot.

In 2017, the microfilm copy of this series was digitized and uploaded to National Archives of Australia RecordSearch database. The digital image can be viewed by clicking the RecordSearch 'Digital item" icon