Interned: Torrens Island, 1914-1915

Interned: Torrens Island, 1914-1915

In August 1914 war broke out across Europe. Within days ‘enemy subjects’ in Australia were required to register with the authorities. Most gave their ‘parole’ and went on with their lives in the community, but internment started with sailors taken off enemy ships and enemy reservists, and went on to include enemy subjects suspected of ‘disloyal or unsatisfactory’ behaviour. Later, some naturalised British subjects and even natural-born British subjects were interned. In the course of the war over 6,000 enemy subjects were interned across Australia.

This dataset contains information about individuals interned during the First World War from South Australia (Military District 4). Most of those interned between October 1914 and August 1915, some 400 men, were held on Torrens Island, in the Port River estuary, north-west of Adelaide. The data set also includes those from South Australia who were interned in New South Wales after Torrens Island internment camp closed in August 1915.

The data was compiled by History SA staff from two archival series in the National Archives of Australia: A367 C18000 Part 1, War Internees and Deportees 1914-1919 and D2286, Nominal Roll of prisoners of war interned at Torrens Island concentration camp 1915. Data fields include: Name, Also recorded as (alternative name), Date interned, Interned (at), Nationality, Date of birth/age, Remarks, and Notes. The data has been produced by identifying individuals who appear in both series and combining information from both series into this data set, using the A367 data as the primary series. This involved interpreting the data, in particular, making an assessment of whether or not entries in the two series with similar names represent the same person. Further research may reveal some of these assessments to be inaccurate.

The dataset was produced as part of research for an exhibition at the Migration Museum and the Wakefield Press publication Interned: Torrens Island, 1914-15. http://migration.historysa.com.au/events/2014/interned-torrens-island-1914-1915 http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=1201