Don't think this has been posted before - I hope it is of use to someone
http://www.sydneybenevolentasylum.com/
Best wishesThis website deals with the historical records of the Sydney Benevolent Asylum for the period 1857-1900.
The records of the Asylum can be the answer to many research problems and, with that in mind, between 1995 and 2007, an index of the inmates of the Asylum was compiled from records held at the Sydney Mitchell Library. The resulting database contains over 78,000 records. As far as has been possible, it is a listing of all the inmates of the Asylum between 1857 and 1900.
...The Asylum was administered by the NSW Benevolent Society, which was established in 1818 as a philanthropic organisation caring primarily for the needy of Sydney. In a colony where so many had been separated from their families through transportation or emigration, it served a vital role throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries caring for the poor, abandoned, destitute and sick. It was an asylum in the sense of being a place of refuge, it did not house the insane.
Prior to 1850 its chief purpose was to assist married women, especially those nearing confinement, older men and families. After the government resumed the Liverpool Hospital in 1862, men ceased to be processed through the Sydney Benevolent Asylum and went directly to Liverpool. The focus of the Sydney Benevolent Asylum then shifted to helping pregnant women, both married and single, during their confinement.
The database index available on this site will therefore be useful for finding a wide range of people who fell on hard times throughout the 19th century.
Lesley