Guide to the Index to Royal Navy ships created by Janet Hine (as filmed by the AJCP)

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M417

National Library of Australia View Catalogue Record

Created: 2019

Collection Summary

Creator: Hine, Janet Dora
Title: Index to Royal Navy ships, Janet D. Hine (as filmed by the AJCP)
Date Range: 1955 - 1956
Collection Number: M417
Extent: 1 item
Language of Materials: English
Repository: Australian Joint Copying Project
Sponsor: The Australian Joint Copying Project (AJCP) online portal was created with the assistance of the Australian Public Service Modernisation Fund, 2017-2020. The National Library of Australia gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the other foundation AJCP partners, the State Library of New South Wales and The National Archives of the UK, and all other organisations which supported the work of the AJCP, the world's most extensive collaborative copying project, operating from 1948 to 1997.

Introduction

Scope and Contents

Index of Royal Navy ships, 1698-1861, compiled in 1955-56.

In 1955 the National Library of Australia and the Mitchell Library, the AJCP partners, considered the question of microfilming Admiralty records at the Public Record Office in London. While records of the famous exploring voyages were easily located, there was no easy way of identifying all the Royal Navy ships that visited Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Janet Hine therefore undertook the formidable task of examining the huge collection of ships' logs in the Public Record Office and noting down the routes of the voyages or the stations or ports where the ships were based. Her index contains entries for all the ships that she examined, and not just the ships that actually came within the scope of the AJCP.

Conditions Governing Access

Available for access.

Conditions Governing Use

Many of the records digitised as part of the AJCP are still in copyright. Readers wishing to publish or reproduce documents should seek permission, in the first instance, from the owner of the original material.

Preferred Citation

Acknowledgement of use of this material should refer to the location of the original material and to the Australian Joint Copying Project.

Items from this collection should include references to the location of the original material and to the AJCP nla.obj number, which serves as the online identifier for the digital copy.

Example: M Series: Journal of Capt. James Cook, 18 February-23 September 1770, British Library Add. MS 27885 (AJCP ref: http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-987654321)

Archival History

Filmed at the Australian High Commission, London, as part of the Australian Joint Copying Project, (AJCP reel M417). Original microfilm digitised as part of the NLA AJCP Online Delivery Project, 2017-2020.

Existence and Location of Copies

The original AJCP microfilm of the records filmed from this collection is available at the The National Library of Australia [https://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn2107054] as well as other institutions holding AJCP microfilm.

The following records relate to material within this collection and were also filmed by the AJCP:ADM 51 Captains' logs, 1740-1849 [https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-732027610/findingaid#nla-obj-732089403]

ADM 52 Masters' logs, 1698-1836 [https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-732027610/findingaid#nla-obj-732095169]

ADM 54 Supplementary logbooks: Masters' logs, 1837-56 [https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-732027610/findingaid#nla-obj-732097707]

ADM 55 Supplementary logbooks: Explorations, 1757-1861 [https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-732027610/findingaid#nla-obj-732100365]

The logs microfilmed by the AJCP, along with many other Admiralty records, are listed in Part 7 of the Australian Joint Copying Project Handbook (1993), now the AJCP Guide to the Records of the Admiralty (PRO). [http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-397322782/view?partId=nla.obj-397446575#]

Finding Aid Note

This finding aid is a revised online version of the original finding aid prepared by the Australian Joint Copying Project (AJCP), published by the National Library of Australia in 2019. The original AJCP finding aids were unpublished typescripts or photocopies available from libraries that held copies of the original microfilm.

Dates used in this finding aid refer to the date range of the records selected for filming rather than to the date range of the Series or Files.

Subjects

Australia; Great Britain; Great Britain. Admiralty; Hine, Janet D.; New Zealand; Royal Navy: index of ships (1577–1861)

Bibliography

Originally cited in Australian Joint Copying Project Handbook. Part 8: Miscellaneous (M) Series. Third Edition, published 1998. Entry 221, p. 83.

Biographical / Historical

Janet Dora Hine (1923-2012) was born in Sydney and educated at North Sydney Girls High School and the University of Sydney, graduating with a BA (Hons) in 1947. She joined the Public Library of New South Wales in 1941 and worked for about ten years in the Mitchell Library, before moving to the cataloguing department. In 1954 she was appointed the Library's first liaison officer in London, based at the office of the New South Wales Agent-General. She travelled widely in Britain, acquiring many valuable records for the Mitchell Library. In addition, she worked closely with the National Library's liaison officer in London identifying records that might be filmed by the Australian Joint Copying Project. In particular, she spent a great deal of time examining Admiralty records at the Public Record office in Chancery Lane. She later wrote about her experiences in her article 'The Public Record Office', Archives and Manuscripts, no. 6, Nov. 1959, pp 1-9.

Hine returned to the Public Library of New South Wales in 1957 and was succeeded in London by Phyllis Mander-Jones (later the first Australian Joint Copying Project Officer). From 1958 to 1964 she was in charge of the Dixson Library and was the William Dixson Foundation Officer. She returned to the cataloguing department in 1964 and in 1968 succeeded Jean Arnot as the Head Cataloguer. She was active in the Library Association of Australia and was well-known as an indexer. She retired in 1982.

Item Descriptions

Index to Royal Navy Ships 1698-1861, 1955 - 1956 (File)

The index is arranged alphabetically by the names of the ships. The entries were typed on cards, with some extending to two cards. There are also a few handwritten cards and some typed entries have handwritten annotations.

Most of the entries contain the following details: the name of the ship, the name of the commander, the precise date range of the voyage, any changes in command, ports or places visited, and the Public Record Office references to the log or logs of the ship. The places visited are generally noted selectively and much more detail is provided if the ship spent long periods in Australian and New Zealand waters rather than just making a short visit. For instance, the entry for the sloop Bathurst in 1821-22 (Capt. P.P. King) lists 80 places visited, while the entry for HMS Beagle in 1831-36 (Capt. R. Fitzroy) lists 22 places visited. If a ship did not come within the AJCP area at all, only a few places are listed. Some entries are based on published reference works rather than ships' logs and in such cases they usually contain just a sentence or two about the voyage. Convict transports fall into this category.

Each card is marked with a tick or a cross. They were almost certainly added later, when the AJCP staff in London were preparing to microfilm ships' logs and other records. In 1958 the AJCP partners decided to extend the geographical coverage to include the Dutch East Indies, Malaya, the Philippines and other parts of South East Asia. One result of this decision was that the ticked entries include many ships of the Royal Navy's East Indies Station which sailed to Penang, Malacca, Batavia, Hong Kong, Manila and elsewhere, but which never visited Australia or New Zealand. In addition, some of the ships of the Pacific Station were mostly based on the west coast of Mexico, Peru and Chile and did not sail as far as the South West Pacific.

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