Yes your right, it was only opened in 1920 and only urgent cases of children/babies were taken in and out of 50 applications only 12 were accepted, dad would have been one of them but there were no other orphanges in Palm Nth at the time, only Wellington and there appears to be no trace of him in them that I can find. But he could have been under another name in one of them and had it changed when he went to Willard for whatever reason. The ironic thing was that the first matron was a Ms Gray, same as dad's name but I have been unable to trace who she was and what happened to her - maybe she had an illigitimate child?
I have even applied for some birth registrations in the same name as dad's in later years, same boy up for adoption x 3 times, but neither the Court/Judge or BDM could agree on what section of the Act I should apply under so I had to give that away - it was a joke. I think some skeletons are just not meant to be found.
Sue