VPRS 17943 Adoption Files of Defunct Adoption Agencies

These files were created by a variety of agencies to document the arrangement of individual adoptions. The Department gained custody of the records once the agencies had ceased to be involved in adoption. The Adoption Information Service gathered the records of the various agencies together after its inception circa 1985, numbered the files sequentially (with an A prefix), and created a full index. Not all defunct agency files can be located within this series. Some are likely to be still in the custody of the Department.Adoption agency records are the records created by the agency or individuals responsible for arranging the adoption of a child. They are the records created in the process of the legalisation of adoptions and are distinctly different from court records.The Adoption of Children Act 1928 became law in July 1929, and the first legal adoption in Victoria was registered in October of that year. Before that time unofficial, de facto adoptions, which were not recognised in law, were sometimes arranged by both Government and non-government organisations, as well as by individuals. The 1928 Act provided for the transfer of parental rights, duties, obligations and liabilities to adoptive parents and offered secrecy, safety and stability to the child and the adoptive parents.As many as thirty different adoption agencies have been in operation at different times. Some of these agencies were very large and between them were responsible for the majority of adoptions in Victoria. Other agencies were not so large but, nevertheless, did create records the retrieval of which is vital to information about an application.