Farm apprentice ledgers - Immigration Act, 1913 and "Barwell Boys Scheme" (GRG7/56)

This series contains three volumes of records of payments made to farm apprentices who arrived in South Australia under farm apprenticeship schemes, including the 'Barwell Boys Scheme'.

Volume 1 (labelled 'Immigration Act, 1913') includes apprentices who arrived in circa 1914 and records: Name of Apprentice, Employer, Ledger Folio (which is also recorded on the top right-hand corner of the page) and address. Money paid to the apprentices is also recorded, and for what reason they were requesting the money (pocket money, books, coat, etc.). Several of these apprentices left the scheme to serve in World War I, which is noted in the ledger.

Volumes 2 and 3 record details of 'Barwell Boys', who arrived in 1923 and 1924. Both record: Name of Apprentice, Date of Birth, Date of Arrival, Boat, File Number, Employer, Address, Date of Employment, and details of payments. There are repetitions of boys in both volumes, but there is a reference in Volume 2 to an "o/s [oversized] ledger", which is probably Volume 2.

Volume 2 records apprentices 822 - 1197 (each Barwell Boy was allocated a file number, arranged roughly alphabetically by surname per ship) and it appears as though pages have been removed at some point (notes inside the volume suggest prior to 1963). There are also gaps in the file numbering. The whereabouts of earlier ledgers relating to Barwell Boys are unknown as at March 2016.

Pages 52 - 67 of Volume 2 originally recorded the names of apprentices who arrived aboard the "Benalla" in August 1923 (File Numbers 938 - 950) but their details were crossed out and replaced with those of apprentices who arrived aboard the "Bendigo" in October 1923 (File Numbers 975 - 990).

Volume 3 was only used for a short period of time before the Barwell Boys Scheme ended, with most entries struck through. Only File Numbers 822 - 922 are recorded and these apprentices all arrived aboard the "Balranald" or the "Ballarat". There are no gaps in the file numbering sequence and references to the Barwell Boys' files suggest that this volume was the fifth ledger of farm apprentice finances.

Volume 3 was used at a later date to record information about other people, including: name (surname and initials), details of children (gender and ages), place (all South Australian, including Whyalla, Lyndoch, Hope Valley, Pinnaroo, Loxton North), a file (?) number, and children's ages. It is believed these families were also migrants, although it is unclear why their details were recorded in a Barwell Boys ledger (the information recorded is also very brief). There are no dates recorded next to these other names, but they are likely to be from the 1960s.

Volume 3 also has an entry for a woman who arrived in Australia in 1961, possibly under a migration scheme, which has been struck through. It is not known why this was entered in this particular volume, as the information does not relate to the Barwell Boys Scheme, but it was possibly entered by mistake.