NRS-16024 | Papers of the Benches of Magistrates, Yorkton/Port Dalrymple, Launceston and Hobart Town (Van Diemen’s Land Papers)

Full description

This series is comprised of what appears to be an incomplete collection of papers for a number of sittings of the Benches of Magistrates in Van Diemen’s Land. The earliest papers (Nos. 23/1-9, March 1805-May 1806) appear to relate to sittings at Yorkton/Port Dalrymple and Launceston, while the papers from 1807-14 (33/10-22) appear to cover Hobart Town.

The papers include general orders, correspondence, petitions, depositions, minutes of proceedings (in some cases verbatim) and opinions of the Bench, and appear to be the earliest surviving court papers from the Van Diemen’s Land settlements. While they relate to a small number of cases, they shed considerable light on the activities of the military, free persons and convicts during the earliest period of European settlement.

These papers were transferred from the Supreme Court of New South Wales to the Mitchell Library c.1950-51. As Van Diemen’s Land was a dependency of New South Wales up to 1825, and there was no court of record in Van Diemen’s Land during that period (where such records might be safely kept), it is possible that the papers came to Sydney even before 1824.