Historical information

These certificates of death are original and give details of 47 deaths from July 1853 to February 1855 with the deaths mostly from the Villiers district in the Parish or Township of Warrnambool. The deaths have been registered by John Martin Ardlie and the doctors’ signatures include those of Isaac Corney and Berkeley Hutchinson.

Significance

This booklet is of high significance as many of the deaths recorded herein are not registered anywhere else and some were buried in the Warrnambool Cemetery before official records began. The Warrnambool Cemetery was gazetted in June 1854. The certificates were found in a private house in Warrnambool.

Physical description

This is a bound booklet with a black linen cover and containing 40 pages. The pages are designed to have the information written twice with one section called the Counterpart and the second called the Original Certificate of Death (Schedule B). The counterpart section was meant to be kept in the booklet and the second section was to be cut out and sent or put elsewhere. The first seven pages have the one Counterpart section and the rest are complete with the two sections. The pages are blue with printed headings for the Registrar of Deaths to fill in. The information on 12 of the pages are incomplete and the entries are handwritten in ink.

Inscriptions & markings

Front cover: Original Certificate of Death, B