In 1826, at the instigation of Governor Darling and the Colonial Secretary, Alexander Mcleay, 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 annual single numbers, 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 1843) with the Governor's instructions.

Minutes and memoranda and the Colonial Secretary's registered correspondence were linked together as administrative convenience dictated throughout the entire period under review, and to find a particular letter or minute it is often necessary to consult both registers of letters received and registers of minutes and memoranda (see Minutes and Memoranda).

By 1840, the growth of inwards correspondence allied with the imperfections of a system arranged by subject and/or by source meant that searches for papers became more laborious and time-consuming and the deficiencies in indexing procedure became more noticeable. At the end of 1842 the first tentative steps towards providing a summary of the contents of some inter-departmental letters were taken, and the following year this became uniform.

By the end of 1849 it must have become obvious that most papers would be found more directly from an index and register than by a direct reference to the records themselves. The following year the system was changed, the inwards correspondence being arranged hence primarily in annual single number order within each year. The system of creating 'special bundles' (ie. by subject) was, however, retained with papers relating to matters of continuing interest, or papers referred to at regular intervals, being placed together. In most cases the connections between papers placed together in 'special bundles' were not noted in the relevant registers.

Prior to responsible government papers to be tabled before the Executive Council were transmitted to the Clerk of the Council by the Colonial Secretary, who in turn had received them from the appropriate department or government official. Before 1846 all documents tabled were copied up in full in Appendices to Minutes but the labour involved (in some cases, up to thirty documents – in addition to annexures to some of these documents – had to be copied up for one paragraph of one minute) led to the supercession of this series by Registers of minute papers laid before the Executive Council. Before 1856 all papers for the Council were transmitted through the Colonial Secretary, and only the Colonial Secretary's in-letter registration numbers of documents tabled and returned to the Colonial Secretary were entered in this register.

From 1856 the several ministerial departments (Colonial Secretary, Treasury, Lands and Works, etc) handled the preparation of Minutes for the Executive Council, minute papers being sent direct to the Clerk of the Council; and after this date the in-letter registration numbers shown in the Registers of papers tabled are those of the respective ministerial departments.

The 'blank cover' system of correspondence became a widely used method of expediting inter-departmental correspondence. The system involved the passing on of a letter received by one department to another department for a report on a matter raised therein. This method saved the need to make a copy of the original letter and the writing of a covering letter — hence 'blank cover'. Such 'blank cover' letters, for example, if sent by the Colonial Secretary to the Surveyor General would first be entered in the Colonial Secretary's register of blank cover letters sent, being given a 'blank cover' annual single number. The original letter, minuted 'the Surveyor General is requested to report' would be forwarded to the Surveyor General with the lower right hand corner turned up for the required report to be written thereon. Upon receipt by the Survey Department the letter would be registered in the register of blank covers received from the Colonial Secretary, the Surveyor General's report would be written on the upturned corner of the letter or on the verso if the report was a long one. A copy of the Colonial Secretary's minute requesting the report, and a copy of the Surveyor General's report in reply would be inserted in the blank cover letter book. The Surveyor General assigned his own annual single number to his replies to the Colonial Secretary's blank covers, which were recorded in the letter book (39).

In 1907 the Colonial Secretary's Department adopted an index-register system. At the beginning of the year blocks of numbers were assigned to letters which the department expected to receive concerning a particular subject, or from a department or private person. Thus, for example, the Colonial Secretary would allocate a block of registration numbers, say 6000-6700, for leave applications from staff. Should the number of leave applications exceed the pre-assigned 'quota' or allotment further numbers would be assigned from those allocated to a department or subject where less correspondence had been received than had been expected.

Each year the Colonial Secretary's Office marked up two volumes of index-registers — one for entries A-L, the other for entries M-Z. The use of index-registers in this way had several advantages. It eliminated the necessity for separate indexing (by making the system self-indexing), and allowed papers of an ephemeral nature to be destroyed en bloc after a cursory examination of subject headings in the index-registers.

In 1922 another major change took place in the registration of the in-letters. The new system was based on self-indexing cards and the volumes were used only to record file movements. The cards were filed within broad classifications and subdivided within this:

The guide cards record the subdivisions. Preceding the main index is a reference index with blue cards recording personal cross-references and orange cards subject cross-references. The registration numbers were divided into two sequences, A and B. The A sequence includes all letters registered in the card index A-L, the B sequence those registered M-Z.

« Previous ι Colonial Secretary Correspondence main page ι Next »