VPRS 5803 Court of Petty Sessions Applications For Publicans' And Wine and Spirit Merchants' Licenses

Full description

This series consists of a bundle of documents of applications for either Publicans' or Wine and Spirit Merchants' licenses. Many of the documents are headed with either the Shire of Talbot or the Borough of Amherst which is probably an indication of where the applicants were intending to operate as the responsibility to grant the license would have fallen to Talbot Courts which likely held responsibility for the granting of licenses in these municipalities.

Up to 1886 registers of applications for liquor and non-liquor licences were created and maintained in local courts of petty sessions at which annual, quarterly and general sittings of justices of the peace, licensing benches or licensing magistrates occurred.

Under the Licensing Act 1885 (40 Vic.,No.857) Victoria was divided into Licensing Districts and Licensing Courts were constituted for each Licensing District to hear and determine liquor licence applications. Licence Registers extant for the period 1886 to 1890 often document the transition of responsibility from the courts of petty sessions to the licensing courts. In most country areas the same volume continued to be used for liquor and non-liquor licence applications until circa 1890 when new stationery was introduced specifically for liquor licence applications. Between 1886 and 1890 the pages which record proceedings of the Licensing Court are annotated to show that they are a record of that authority.

In this particular instance, however, a licensing register has yet to be located. It is possible that one was not created with these process documents retained instead.

This series was transferred to PROV by the University of Melbourne Archives which had originally received them as part of the E.J. Semmens Collection.