Holdings of Navy personnel records in the Melbourne office are relatively small when compared to the size of other collections of defence records held by the office. Additional records are held by the Archives Canberra office, while others have been retained by the Department of Defence. See Fact Sheet 30 – Navy service records (general holdings) for details.
Records held in Melbourne date from Federation in 1901 until 1959 when the Navy Office was relocated to Canberra. Rather than being complete service dossiers, records of Naval personnel relate to particular aspects of service, such as appointments and postings, periods of leave, or honours received. Personal files of RAN Reserve officers and ratings are also held.
 | Navy correspondence files relating to personnel matters | 1911–21 | MT574/1 | ||
| Navy correspondence files relating to personnel matters | 1922–23 | MT574/2 | ||
| Correspondence files relating to naval personnel matters | 1923–50 | MT856/1 | ||
| Correspondence files relating to naval personnel matters | 1923–50 | MT1214/1 | ||
| Correspondence files relating to naval personnel matters | 1923–50 | MT1334/1 | ||
| Correspondence files relating to naval personnel matters | 1951–59 | MT1136/1 | ||
| Personal files of senior reserve officers | 1910–59 | MP763/2 | ||
| Personal files of reserve officers and ratings | 1914–59 | MT905/1 | ||
| Personal files of reserve officers and ratings | 1914–59 | MT905/2 | ||
| Personal files of reserve officers and ratings | 1914–59 | MT1334/5 | ||
You can obtain more information about the record series listed above (and the items within the series) from RecordSearch, the Archives database. Follow the links in the series lists to go directly to information on that series. You can also use RecordSearch to find out about the agencies that created the records and to locate more records on your subject. You might also explore PhotoSearch to find out if there are photos pertaining to your subject.
RecordSearch and PhotoSearch are available online or in all Archives reading rooms. Reference staff are available in the reading rooms to help you, or email ref@naa.gov.au.
In order to identify individual record items from the series you should firstly check the RecordSearch database, which includes item level data, and is available on the Internet and online in all reading rooms. If this does not prove successful you will need to use the control records such as index cards and registers that were created with the records to identify records of interest. Several of the subject indexes to the Navy series above are available for use in the reading room of the Victorian Archives Centre.
Additional information about Navy personnel matters (such as conditions of service and industrial matters) is also found scattered throughout a number of the more general runs of administrative records known as 'correspondence files' or 'correspondence series'. Information about individual serving members may also be found on these files. Records identified as containing this type of information are indicated in Fact Sheet 137 – Navy administrative records in Melbourne.
For further information on Navy service personnel records see:
Comments or other feedback can be sent to archives@naa.gov.au
updated December 2004