The army enlistment form of Private Lance Australia Day Gardner, born in Gunnedah in 1915 and who enlisted in August 1940, has become the nine millionth page to be digitised and loaded onto the National Archives of Australia website.

Acting Director-General of the Archives, Ms Jenny Anderson said the milestone comes as the Archives continues its quest to increase access to its collection.

‘Reaching nine million digitised images is a wonderful milestone, and to do it in just four years and nine months is a tremendous achievement,’ Ms Anderson said.

‘The Archives is a world leader in digitisation of its amazing collection.  Wherever you live you can make an online request to view a particular document, and within a few weeks can see it online.’

Among the nine million digitised pages are Prime Ministers’ files, Cabinet records, trademarks and immigration documents.  Each month, the digitising team at the National Archives scans and loads another 134,000 pages onto its website.

By far the most frequent requests for digitisation of documents are for war service records, as the National Archives holds the records of the 1.5 million Australians who served in the two World Wars.

Subsequent pages of Private Gardner’s dossier show that prior to joining the army at age 25, he spent three years working as a sanitary carter with Gunnedah Council.  While in the army he served supporting units in South Australia, Northern Territory, New South Wales and Victoria, and was awarded the Defence, War, and Australian Service Medals.  He was discharged in 1945 and died in 1968.

But what of Private Gardner’s middle name ‘Australia Day’?  What must his parents William and Johanna have been thinking?  The Archives would love to hear from a relative or friend who could explain the name behind the nine millionth record!

Lance Australia Day Gardner’s service record can be accessed via the National Archives of Australia’s website.  Go to RecordSearch and in the ‘keywords’ space type in ‘Gardner Lance Australia Day’.