VPRS 16809 Register of Domestic Staff

The series consists of summary employment details for domestic staff that worked at the Royal Children's Hospital.The information recorded in the registers includes:- Person's name- Date of commencement- Employment type- Leave taken- Date left employment- Some entries include remarks on job performance.The first volume appears to have been commenced in 1913 and it records details for staff commencing around this time until 1925. It also includes several entries for staff who commenced prior to 1913; the earliest being 1896 (one entry only). It appears that the employment history details for existing staff (some at least) were incorporated into the volume at the time it was commenced.The second volume records details for staff that commenced from 1947 to 1953.The second volume also contains other information such as floor plans and key registers.Typical domestic staff roles included, for females: cook, laundress, housemaid, kitchen maid, pantry maid, dining room maid, serving maid, wards maid, outpatients maid, relieving maid, sewing maid, general servant and telephone clerk/attendant. For males, roles included: wards man, night porter, cleaner, fireman, useful man and engineer.There is a gap in the records from 1926 to 1946. The whereabouts of the records is not known.It is not known what employment records were maintained for domestic staff prior to 1913 and the period post 1953 is also subject to further research.Prior to transfer to Public Record Office Victoria, the records in this series were maintained as part of the Royal Children's Hospital (RCH) Archives. They were part of RCH accession number 2007/008.