Colonial Secretary Guide - Flipbook - Page 19
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The Letters Received, 1826-1982
In 1826, at the instigation of Governor Darling and the Colonial Secretary, Alexander Mdeay, a carefully
conceived correspondence system was introduced (37). Letters received from each Department were filed
in separate "pigeon holes" in a large press, while letters of a miscellaneous nature (that is letters from
private persons) were filed together alphabetically by name of writer in a separate compartment. "With a
view to facility" each letter was "numbered as received, the date of receipt noted upon it, and the
particulars of its number, date, date of receipt, subject, to whom and when referred, and when and how
acted upon" entered in a register, and the registers indexed.
The registers seem to have been used in the Colonial Secretary's Office primarily as an indication that a
letter on a particular subject had been received, rather than as an aid to actually finding it. The in-letters,
after being assigned an annual single number, were filed by provenance in separate "pigeon holes" of the
press (eg. separate "pigeon holes" were kept for letters received from Police, the Principal Superintendent
of Convicts, the Commissariat and so on). The indexes to the registers merely recorded the registered
numbers of letters from officers without giving any indication of the subject. Thus, in the case of a
department such as the Surveyor General from whom many letters were received in the course of a year,
to find a particular letter might require that upwards of a hundred registered numbers be checked from
the index to the register. In practice, the filing clerks probably thumbed through the bundle of letters
received from the department concerned until the required letter was found. The registers might have
been checked in cases where various persons wrote on the same subject to find out who was the last
officer or person who wrote - the file would then have been located in that pigeon hole.
The correspondence was later re-arranged. In November 1919 the Royal Australian Historical Society
requested the Chief Secretary to appoint a Research Officer to investigate and classify the old records in
his department to facilitate historical research. A similar arrangement had been made with the Lands
Department in 1917. The suggestion was refused as impracticable at that time.
"... but that when the staff resumes its normal proportions upon the return of officers
from active service abroad, the proposition will receive further consideration."
In October 1920, Mr Young of the Records Office, Chief Secretary's Department, was appointed to
investigate the records relating to Tasmania before separation with the view to handing these over to that
government. He then continued to work on the early records of New South Wales. He re-arranged the
letters received from 1826 to 1832 into registered number order (38). Previously the arrangement has been
similar to that for the period 1833-49 (ie. by provenance). This re-arrangement was most unfortunate due
to the lack of subject indexing in the indexes to the registers.
In addition to reorganising the correspondence system Governor Darling instituted a system of conveying
official instructions to the Colonial Secretary through the media of minutes and memoranda. The
difference between minutes and memoranda is not clear, although on the whole the latter were brief
administrative instructions on minor matters, while the former were fairly comprehensive and dealt more
with policy, with detailed plans and proposals of the Governor and with the more important matters of
government.
With the governorship of Sir George Gipps (1838) minutes ceased to be written out in full. Increasingly
the Governor conveyed his instructions by notation on the in-letters referred to him for decision. From
1838 the minutes from the Governor to the Colonial Secretary consist chiefly of summaries from the
Minutes of the Executive Council conveying its decisions noted with the Governor's approval, originals or
copies of despatches from the Secretary of State for the information or action of the Colonial Secretary,
relevant letters from the Colonial Agent in London, and letters passed on from other offices in London eg.
the Transport Office of the Admiralty and the Emigration Commissioners. These papers are occasionally
included before 1838 but more often the Governor sent separate instructions. Later too are transmitted
Acts passed by the Legislative Council (established 1842) with the Governor's instructions.