Access information from historic warrants issued by the Victorian Sheriff's Office from 1838 to 1919.
Use the links above to download and search the index to Victorian Sheriff's Office warrants (Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, each under 5MB). The index was updated in December 2014.
Date range
Most of the warrants that have been indexed date from 1842 to 1869. The earliest indexed warrant dates from 1838. Some warrants from the 1870s and 1880s are included in the index, alongside a small number of warrants from 1909, 1917 and 1919.
Data
Completeness
We have created over 68,000 index entries, representing about 25% of the warrants in the collection.
This guide relates to historic warrants. For information on outstanding current warrants, contact:
This spreadsheet is sorted alphabetically by surname, then first name. To find a name, open the index spreadsheet, navigate to the index, and browse the surname list. Alternatively, open the index spreadsheet, navigate to the index, and press Ctrl-F (Windows) or CMD-F (Mac). This will bring up a search box which you can use to search for a specific surname.
Browsing the list by surname is the most effective way to locate records. In the 1800s many people were illiterate, so the spelling of surnames was not standardised. Accents could also make the recording of names difficult. Think about what a name might have sounded like when it was said aloud - for example, the Irish surname Powlett may have been recorded as Paulett or Pollett.
Index entries for people with unknown surnames are included at the end of the spreadsheet that lists surnames L-Z.
Russell Street Police Headquarters, Melbourne Victoria, H. Dacre Stubbs [between 1948 and 1950], PCLTA 2340
