This blog is a companion to the Database of Volunteers of Essendon and Flemington

Sunday, June 9, 2019

Voluntary war workers' record / compiled for the benefit of the Australian Comforts Fund, 1918


This drab little volume holds a wealth of information about the myriad of patriotic organisations in Victoria - what they did, and who their volunteer workers were.  It has been digitised by the National Library  There is no index or contents page.  I can't quite see a way of searching through it, but it is roughly organised into alphabetical order by organisation and then by town. Very roughly.  I think the only way of being sure you have covered everything is a page by page scroll through the volume.  It is only 192 pages, so not an impossibly difficult task.

The pre-eminent position is given to the Lady Mayoresses' Patriotic League, and its list of voluntary workers at the headquarters, and then follows an account of each branch, beginning with Bairnsdale and Ballarat, but followed by the Peter Pan Club and the Scots Church Sub-Branch.  Evidently they could choose their own name, but worked in concert with the main organisation.

Other organisations included are the YMCA Snap-shots from Home League, Red Cross VAD Committee, YMCA Club for Soldiers and Sailors, League of Soldiers' Friends, and individual efforts from various schools collecting to support many other patriotic efforts, for example Parkville High School:

UPDATE

Jenny Coates has helpfully pointed out the presence of a little magnifying glass on the left side of the frame where the document appears, and you can search for names or places there, which produces a little green pointer to indicate where the page is with the result.  Thanks, Jenny!

And further to the matter of searching the document, it can be downloaded as a pdf and searched that way.

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