Record series
Passenger Ship Register Out
VPRS 955
1869 - 1924
Open
North Melbourne
Agencies
This record series was created by:
Department of Trade and Customs ( VA606 ): 1869 - 1900
Public Works Department (previously the Department of the Commissioner of Public Works) ( VA669 ): 1900 - 1924
Agencies responsible for this record series: Date Range
Series date range: 1869 - 1924
Series in custody:
1869 - 1924
Contents in custody:
1869 - 1924
Function / Content
This series comprises a record of passenger ship departures from Victorian ports. It appears that the record was maintained for the compilation of passenger departure statistics as derived from the outward passenger lists to overseas and other ports in Australia (VPRS 948) and is effectively the control series.Entries include the following details:
- port of departure
- date of departure
- name of vessel
- tonnage
- port of destination
- numbers of cabin, intermediate and steerage passengers.
All of this information has been derived from information provided on the outwards passenger list in VPRS 948. Passenger numbers are derived from the passenger summary which appears on the final page of most lists.
At the end of the entries for each month there is a statistical recapitulation.
The series is incomplete as there are no volumes extant covering entries for the period January 1879 to August 1883. It is unclear if the series commenced in 1869. For the period November 1855 to December 1859 a similar record exists which combines the information recorded for passenger ship arrivals and departures. It is possibly a previous series - refer to VPRS 22/P Units 12 and 13. There are no similar records extant for the period January 1860 to December 1868.
The series ended in 1924 when responsibility for monitoring immigration passed to the Commonwealth.
For the same period consult VPRS 954 for a similar record relating to arrivals of passenger ships.
How to use the records
Use the Consignment listing to order the volume for the desired period.Recordkeeping system
Entries are arranged in the volumes firstly by month of ship's departure, then by a grouping of the ports at which passengers were to be discharged. The following groupings were used:- Foreign Ports
- British Ports
- New Zealand Ports (usually also including nearby Pacific islands), and
- each individual Australian colony/state.
The lists in VPRS 948 were originally stored in folded monthly bundles according to the groupings described. Each list was folded and the name of the vessel, its arrival date and the final destination was written on the fold of the list that was visible when placed upright in the bundle.
If a vessel undertook a voyage that was to stop at a number of ports which cut across the various groupings, the filing clerks would place the list in the bundle for the same grouping as that for the port written on the visible fold in the bundle. Multiple entries were made in these registers for a single voyage if the list documented the intention for passengers to be discharged at ports within these groupings. This is different to the inwards register (VPRS 954), in which there would be only a single entry attributing to arrival of all passengers from just one of the inwards groupings.
Within each of these groupings, ships were listed by the date of departure from Victoria.
