Series number

AWM88

Series title

Governor General's Office, honours and awards files

Series contents date range

1939-1957

Extent

19 metres

Access conditions

Subject to the Archives Act 1983

Agency controlling

Governor-General

Custodial agency

Australian War Memorial

Function and provenance

This series consists of recommendations for honours and awards for the Second World War, Korean War and Malayan Emergency.  During this period the Australian Government still followed the British system of honours and awards when making recommendations for deeds of bravery and gallantry and for distinguished conduct or service.

Recommendations from within the Australian Army, the Royal Australian Navy or the Royal Australian Air Force were forwarded to their respective service boards and then forwarded to Government House for approval by the Governor-General.  A number of awards were also made to civilians, members of the Allied forces and the Merchant Navy.  Once they were approved, notifications were made in the London Gazette and the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette.

Award ceremonies or investitures were usually held at Government House in the state of origin of the recipient.  A number of ceremonies were also held at BuckinghamPalace in London.  Where recipients could not attend a ceremony an award was sent to them by mail.

The series also contains details of awards to Australians from overseas countries, e.g., a copy of the United States Presidential Citation, which was awarded to the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, during the Korean War.

The files and index cards relating to recommendations for the Second World War were transferred to the Australian War Memorial (AWM) in November 1962.  The files for the Korean War and Malayan Emergency were transferred in January and March 1971.  The index cards for this later period were retained by the Governor-General’s Office until July 1993 when they were transferred to the AWM and accessioned as OW93/14.

The series became known as AWM88 in the mid 1980s when the Memorial adopted its new numbering system for Official Records.

Contents

This series consists of files relating to the award and presentation of insignia, decorations and medals to Australian service personnel, members of the Allied forces, civilians and members of the Merchant Navy.  The files include administrative correspondence relating to the promulgation of the award and its presentation to recipients, lists and texts of citations and transcripts of the actual recommendations where available.  Recommendations are not available for all awards, e.g. a ‘Mentioned in Despatches’ (MID) awarded to members of the Australian Military forces is usually in the form of a list of names from the gazette due to the large numbers that were awarded.

System of arrangement and control

The Governor-General’s Office developed its own filing system to maintain this series of files using a single running number accompanied by a prefix.  While there is no documentation available which explains how the prefixes were derived, most of them are self explanatory, e.g., RAN is used for the Royal Australian Navy, AMF for the Australian Military Forces and O/A for operational awards.

Most of the files relating to the Korean War have the prefix ‘K’ following the service abbreviation and before the individual file number e.g., AMF K/142, RAAF K/87.

Separate files have been kept relating to the presentation of awards.  A number of investitures were held at BuckinghamPalace in London while in Australia they were usually held at a state level at Government House.  These files have been arranged according to the place and date of presentation e.g., AMF Adelaide 2.  The file title will indicate if it is a general file or if it is for a specific service

Using the series

The index cards (AWM192) which control AWM88 have been digitised and incorporated into the Honours and Awards database, which can be viewed on the Australian War Memorial’s website at, http://www.awm.gov.au/database/awm28/index.asp

The database can be searched by any word in the keyword/phrase search field, or in separate fields by surname, first names (or initials), service number or award.  The award field is best searched by selecting a term from the drop down list provided.

Once researchers have located the name or names that they are interested in they will need to record the G. H. File number or numbers from the right hand side of the card to access the original file, e.g. G. H. File: AMF 0/A 41 or G. H. File: RAAF 0/A 25.  In some cases there may be more than one file containing information about an award, e.g., files relating to the presentation of awards are separate to the recommendation files. 

Researchers will need to fill out a stack request slip for each file number that appears on the index card.

Further assistance in finding relevant information may be gained from related series of records (click on Series Links at the bottom of this page).

Sources

AWM Administrative file, AWM88 series dossier

AWM315, 424/001/001