Amelia Lucy Wayn

Amelia Lucy Wayn MBE (1862 – 11 August, 1951) was an Australian historical researcher who was employed in Tasmania long before the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office was established.

Life
Wayn was born in Koblentz in Germany in 1862 and she arrived in Tasmania with her parents in 1864. Her mother, Amelia (born Ibbotson), died in 1877 and her father, Rev. Arthur Wayn, moved about as he was an Anglican clergyman. She looked after her father for many years and after he retired she trained at Launceston Public Hospital in 1896 as a nurse. In 1900 she and Miss McDowall opened Fairfield Private Hospital which they ran together until 1915. During the first World War and until 1921 she was a matron-in-charge at a military hospital.

When she was almost 60, Wayn was employed, in 1921, as a "Lady Indexer" as part of the state's contribution to The Historical Records of Australia. She was to organise the records that went back to the 1820s and held by the Tasmanian Chief Secretary's Department. She was intended to be temporary, but she became the expert in the state's records. Her labours were mostly voluntary and received just a token payment until 1942 when she was paid a salary. She had been made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1941 and she continued her work until 1949 when an archivist was employed. The records she created up to 1856 were her speciality and the index was named after her.

Death and legacy
Wayn died in Hobart in 1951. The Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office was established in 2008,  as an amalgamation of the various existing services, to provide a single entry point into Tasmanian social history, government records and cultural artefacts. The Wayn index continued to be updated and it has been on-line since 2011.