VPRS 13625 Register of Deeds, Heathcote

Full description

Under the Land Acts and the Mines Act, formal documents relating to Crown grants, leases and licenses needed to be forwarded, in an accountable fashion, from the main office of the Department of Crown Lands and Survey and/or the Mines Department in Melbourne to individuals throughout Victoria. For this task, as for the collection of payments such as rents, the services of local Receivers of Revenue and Paymasters were used. Often the local Clerk of Courts performed this function. In larger places such as Bendigo, Sub-Treasury Offices might be used.

Originally the Registers of Deeds were maintained by the Receiver and Paymaster, Colonial Treasury. Once Deeds of Grant were signed by the Governor, they were conveyed to the Colonial Secretary and then to the Treasurer for delivery upon payment of the established fees. The Receiver and Paymaster was responsible for entering the relevant particulars in the registers, issuing the deeds to the owners or their accredited representative after the payment of fees and obtaining signatures on the registers in acknowledgment of the receipt of deeds. When Sub-Treasuries were established in non-metropolitan areas, the Receiver and Paymaster, Colonial Treasury was able to send deeds for local residents to the local Receiver and Paymaster for delivery. Later, deeds went directly to local Receipt and Pay Offices

The Register of Deeds was used by the Receiver and Paymaster to record the documents handled and their transmission to the owner. For the Department of Crown Lands and Survey (VA 538), once licenses for the occupation of Crown Lands were approved by the Board of Land and Works (VA 774) or leases and Crown grants approved by the Governor-in-Council, details were forwarded to the Deeds Branch within the Department for the preparation and execution of documentation. Many, if not most, related to matters in areas away from Melbourne.

The deeds were forwarded, with a covering circular and after advertisement in the Government Gazette, to the local Receiver and Paymaster for transmission to the licensee or lessee or grantee. The Receiver, once the deed was delivered was to return the circular to the Department notifying it of that delivery. The intended recipient was informed by a standard letter or card that the deed was available for collection from a specific official at a nominated place. In the original list of Land Districts and parishes, a Receiver of Revenue was nominated for each parish in the Land District. Some locations could be nominated for parishes in a number of Land Districts. Heathcote was a Receipt and Pay Office for the Bendigo (or Sandhurst) Land District and the Seymour Land District.

Details given in the Register of Deeds are the number of the deed, the allotment and section of the land, the town or parish, the extent of the land, the name of the person receiving the deed, the date of the deed, the dates of its receipt and issue and a signature of acknowledgment of its receipt by the owner. Registers may also have filed in them correspondence from recipients requesting and giving authority for deeds to be forwarded to solicitors or banks or to be handed to someone other than the person named on them.

Other documents dealt with in the same register included Certificates of Naturalization, Licenses for the occupation of Unused Roads and Water Frontages (administered by VA 669 Department of Public Works) and Eucalyptus Licenses. Further details regarding Unused Roads and Water Frontages may be found in such series as VPRS 10542 Rent Rolls Unused Roads and Water Frontages and VPRS 4683 Regional Rent Rolls, Unused Roads and Water Frontages.

VPRS 13625 / P1 was previously registered as Units 93 to 96 inclusive of VPRS 406 / P Register of Deeds.