VPRS 21462 Court of Petty Sessions/Magistrates' Court Index of Convictions and Maintenance

Full description

This series consists of an index to convictions and maintenance orders recorded in the Court of Petty Sessions/Magistrates' Court at Brunswick.

Indexes to convictions were created in most Courts of Petty Sessions from the 1880s until the 1960s. Throughout this period, various circular instructions from the Law Department to Clerks of Courts required them to keep an index by surname of convicted person to all criminal convictions and orders made at their court. This index allowed clerks to find the entry for a particular case in the Court's register. Since the mid 1960s Clerks of Courts have not been required to maintain such an index, although a few courts have continued to use informal indexing systems.

Although specially printed index books were provided to all courts, the manner in which the index was kept varied from court to court.