Azaria Chamberlain Case (Australia)

Collection

Identifier: Collection 138

Staff Only

Content Description

The user of this collection must bear in mind how the Center for Adventist Research acquired it. The Heritage Room at Avondale College brought together the duplicate copies of the holdings regarding the Chamberlain case and sent them to Andrews University. We do not know where the Avondale center got the records, though it is clear the source was friendly to the Chamberlain cause. With the exception of the Royal Commission transcripts the collection is by no means comprehensive or complete. It will help to give a sense of the media coverage and some of the efforts to counter the evidence given at the initial trial.

The bulk of the papers in this collection are the transcripts of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Chamberlain Convictions, 1986 to 1987, over 9,000 pages of court transcripts. These transcripts are complete. There are transcripts from two other legal proceedings in 1981 and 1982. These are not complete. Also included are some letters associated with the movement to overturn the convictions, including several circular letters from Michael and Lindy Chamberlain. As the movement to free Lindy got underway many documents and “new” evidence came out. The collection has some of that, but surely not everything. The same is true for the media coverage included in the collection. There are a sampling of newspaper articles mostly from the free Lindy perspective.

Dates

1980 - 1986

Conditions Governing Use

All users of this collection will complete the “Application to Use Unpublished Records,” and observe the regulation specified in the “Patron’s Agreement” and “Researcher’s Code of Conduct.” All records in this collection are open and available for research. There was a note that portions of the Chamberlain documents may not be fully open, but there was no notation as to which portions. Suggested citation for this collection:

Box ___, Fld ___, Azaria Chamberlain Case (Collection 138), Center for Adventist Research, James White Library, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI.

Extent

4 Boxes

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Arrangement

The present order was set by the Center for Adventist Research. In each series of records, the order is generally chronological. Where there is no date, such as in a lot of the documents, the order is alphabetical by some portion of the document title. The court transcripts form the vast bulk of the collection. They are in chronological order.