VPRS 6169 Applications and File Management Cards, Ballarat and Ararat

Full description

Application and file management cards replaced Registers of Applications in content and partly in function from 1908 in the Head Office and from the mid-1920s in District Survey Offices. Details given are the application number, either as a single number or as the fraction where the denominator indicates the Section of the Act (the Land Acts of 1901, 1911, 1915 and 1928 were the main Acts) and the numerator is the file number, the name and address of the applicant, the area and location of the land (section, allotment, parish) and relevant dates. Other details are notations regarding file movements and management and the receipt and sending of correspondence. If a change was made in the Section of a Land Act under which a lease or a license to occupy had been issued, the new file number might be found on this card.

From about 1901 there was a steady decline in new applications being made under the Land Acts. In mid -1907 a circular was sent to District Land Officers notifying them that from that time onwards, all applications regardless of Act and Section of the Act, were to be recorded in a single register kept at the District Land Office and allocated an annual single number. Once applications had been ruled upon by the Local Land Board, details of those which had been successful were to be entered in the register to be kept at the District Land Office for specific sections of an Act and allocated a running number which became the file number.

Successful applications had this card and a rent payment card made up at the Occupation Branch of the Department of Crown Lands and Survey (VA 538). Details of active files which were initially registered in the volume registers of applications were gradually transferred onto the cards with an annotation being made on the registers either by the word 'Card' or a tick beside the entry. Unsuccessful applications, after 1907, did not have a card made up. These were listed at the Department and papers were filed there in case of appeal against the decision of the Local Land Board.

Cards in this series are a mixture relating to selection purchase leases and to conditional purchase leases under the Closer Settlement and Discharged Soldier Settlement Acts with some relating to grazing licenses to occupy. Cards relate to properties in the Ararat and Ballarat Land Districts including the Maryborough and Avoca areas.