(/) World War I on the Home Front The City of Melbourne 1914–1918 ‘World War I on the Home Front: the City of Melbourne 1914–1918’, Provenance: The Journal of Public Record Office Victoria, issue no. 15, 2016–2017. ISSN 1832-2522. Copyright © Nicole Davis, Nicholas Coyne and Andrew J May Nicole Davis is a Research Fellow and PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. Corresponding author: davis.nicole@unimelb.edu.au (mailto:davis.nicole@unimelb.edu.au) Nicholas Coyne completed Honours in History at the University of Melbourne in 2015. Andrew J May is Professor of History at the University of Melbourne. Abstract This article utilises Melbourne City Council’s Town Clerk’s Correspondence as a critical resource through which to examine the experience of World War I on the home front in an Australian city. It argues that an examination of such records shifts the balance of historiographical attention from the global to the local in critical ways, and, in so doing, demonstrates the ways in which the war permeated every facet of life within the municipality; from the day-to-day running of the city, its economy, public spaces, and social relationships, as well as broader understandings of loyalty, patriotism and citizenship. The article further argues the profound importance of this collection and the ways in which it can be used to tell the big and small stories of war in the city. In the days prior to the outbreak of World War I, the clerks in the Melbourne City Council’s (MCC) Town Clerk’s of!ce stamped and !led inward correspondence relating to council matters, as they and their predecessors had done since 1842. With no hint of what was to come revealed within the bureaucratic paperwork of World War I on the Home Front | PROV https://www.prov.vic.gov.au/explore-collection/provenance-jo... 1 of 33 8/6/17, 9:14 pm