NRS-15822 | Town Hall registers [Municipality of Balmain]

Full description

Town Hall Registers were initially required to be created under s. 9 of the 1922 Municipal Accounting regulations (1) and subsequent accounting regulations. s. 9 required the maintenance of Town Hall Registers in order to record the receipts and charges for hire of the Town Hall (or Council Chambers).

The Town Hall Registers were maintained in a double page format recording the following information: Name or organisation responsible for hire of Town Hall, purpose of hire, room hired, date hired, amount of hire, date, receipt number, and amount of the deposit and balance of payment, total of hire hall, balance owing at the end of half year, and remarks. The remarks column indicated particulars regarding payment such as those charged at charity rates.

The municipal accounting regulations do not specify the process of entering information contained in the registers into the main accounting system. However, income derived from town hall hire was also entered into the Miscellaneous Revenue Books (NRS 15819), and summarised in the Cashbooks (NRS 15818). This information was then posted into General Ledgers. Ledgers form part of a standard public sector accounting system. This system generally comprised Cash Books, Journals (General and Subsidiary), and Ledgers (General and Subsidiary).

Income and expenditure recorded by the Town Hall Registers were accredited through the General Ledger into the General Fund. The Council also maintained other funds such as loans and trust funds. Under Schedule 1 of the 1908 Municipal Accounting Regulations (2), accounts were classified into General Purpose (G.P) Public Works (P.W), Public Service (P.S), Health Administration (H.A) and Shire Property.

Custody History

This series was in the custody of Mitchell Library until December 2001 when it was transferred to State Records NSW under section 29 of the State Records Act, 1998

End Notes
(1) NSW Government Gazette 27 January, 1922 p. 564
(2) NSW Government Gazette 19 November, 1908 p. 6131– 6135