New South Wales. Commissariat - `Barrack General Orders and circulars issued to Foreign stations since the promulgation of the Book of Barrack Instructions dated 1st January 1827 (numbers from 1 to 79)', 31 Dec. 1834 being copies issued by the Office of Ordnance

MLMSS 7775

fonds

1 Jan. 1827 - 31 Dec. 1834

457419

1 volume - 0.03 Meters
Textual Records - (printed)
Textual Records - (manuscript)

`In 1813 it was decided to reform the Commissariat as a branch of the office of the Commissary General in London, which was a sub-department of the Treasury. The Officers of the Commissariat were to be part of the English Commissariat staff. A Deputy Commissary General was appointed as head of the Colonial Branch, and was subject to the instructions issued by the British Commissariat. The Governor of NSW would now only have a supervisory role (14)... To cope with the needs of a rapidly expanding colony, an Accounts Branch of the Commissariat was established in NSW in 1824... Following the administrative separation of Van Diemens Land from New South Wales in 1825, it was decided the Commissariat in Hobart should no longer be responsible to Sydney. This separation of the two Commissariats took place on 15 September 1825 (22). It is from this re-organisation that the Commissary of Stores was created as a branch of the Commissariat (24). In January 1826 Governor Darling issued a General Order explicitly defining the duties of the Commissary of Stores. One of the changes was that the Commissary of Stores was to be given physical custody of all articles received and issued (25). In the same year Darling combined the superintendence of Military Stores and Civil Stores under the Deputy Assistant Commissary General (26) ... In 1834 Governor Bourke made it clear that the very high expense of the military and convict establishments would bring more frequent applications from the Commissariat for loans from the Colonial Treasury (32). In view of this situation, the English Government planned certain administrative changes which came into effect on 1 January 1836. The most important of these was the establishment in the Colony of a branch of the British Ordnance Department. The Ordnance Department was given physical custody of the military works and buildings, the ordnance and other military stores, as well as the buildings occupied by the convicts and the stores and clothing required for the use of the convict establishment (33). The Ordnance Department also became responsible for keeping most of the records relating to custody and issue of all government non-perishable stores in NSW (34). As a consequence, from January 1836 the responsibilities were very much reduced in size, leaving it only an administrative-financial branch of the British Treasury (35)' -- State Records Authority NSW

The bound volume contains the index and instructions for the administration of Barracks in foreign countries. Many of the circulars, general orders and quarterly returns are signed by R. Byham

Chronological arrangement with an alphabetical index to the Orders

Transferred from Q354.916/G in Mar. 1985

`D.S. Mitchell' -- frontispiece.