VPRS 1294 Register Of Commons

Full description

"within the English land-use tradition it was an established principle that those who held no property in land were entitled...to those physical...resources necessary for individual, and by extension, group survival. This centuries old notion was defined in rights of common and expressed geographically in common lands". [R.Wright The Bureaucrats Domain. Space and the Public Interest in Victoria 1836-84 Oxford University Press Melb. 1989, p. 7]

Commons were set apart near towns, gold-mines and in agricultural districts. While capable of being revoked whenever settlement needs grew pressing, they provided 'free' temporary forage and grazing space [R.Wright ibid, p.105].

The Land Act 1860 established considerable legislation regarding commons with Farmers Commons being dealt with under Sections 42 and 73, Town Commons under Sections 69 and 70, and Goldfields Commons under Section 71. Commons continued to be the subject of legislation in the Land Act 1862, the Amending Land Act 1865 and the Land Act 1869 as well as in subsequent Land Acts.

Most commons registered in this series are those proclaimed under the provisions of the Land Act 1862 and the Land Act 1869. This register appears to have been a means of recording the proclamation of and gazettal of matters relating to the establishment and further management of commons.

Details given are the designation (or name) of the common, references to correspondence, the date of proclamation, the area proclaimed and its established grazing capabilities and the reference in the Government Gazette. Further spaces are available to give a notation of the gazettal of extension or diminution of a common and the effect upon the grazing capacity and any area remaining available. Details of the management of each common is given (by a Trust or by a municipal authority appointed by the Governor-in-Council). The column for remarks has been used to make references regarding the date of the approval of regulations drawn up for the management of the common and to note the date of abolition and Government Gazette reference for the abolition of a common.

Some further details may be found regarding commons in VPRS 8769/P1 Register of Description of Permanent Reserves - Commons.