Lot 157
Campbell Town, Tasmania, running 1832–1857
A neatly-kept chronological manuscript record of official colonial government circulars from the offices of the Colonial Secretary, Chief Police Magistrate, and others giving directives and advising policy on a range of police-related and other matters of local administration, interspersed with memoranda by officials and magistrates of the Campbell Town district on the same; after preliminary leaves devoted to the beginnings of an index, the entries begin with 'Circular No. 1' dated 8 February, 1832, and run to the last, 'Circular No. 369', dated 15 October, 1857, all in brown ink in various hands (none identified) carefully transcribing each circular and memorandum and their signatories and dates; the margins with occasional later short notes in pencil briefly indicating the subject of a particular circulars, these apparently corresponding with a pencil note on the second leaf, 'Examined', followed by a set of initials
Large quarto, half leather over marbled paper boards, binding leaves of ruled laid paper with Britannia and 'LONDON / 1839' watermarks, of which the first 180-odd leaves (approximately two-thirds of the whole) are used, double-sided except the preliminary leaves, the remainder blank, the front board inscribed in ink 'Circulars' and the spine 'Circulars Book'
Estimate $2,000 - $4,000
The vendor's grandfather, saved by him from destruction at the Campbell Town tip in the 1980s upon its disposal as part of a larger collection of material (including the following lot).
Evidently begun and maintained for police or related official purposes in Campbell Town as a means of gathering circulars and related memoranda in a single place, partly retrospectively (as indicated by the fact that the record runs from 1832 but the volume was not made, as a blank journal, until 1839, as the watermarks in its paper confirm).
The volume covers a wide range of administrative subjects including management of convicts and other prisoners, absconders and rewards, management and disposal of Crown lands and other property, petitions and other applications to the colonial administration, and the magistracy and police.
Decorative Arts
AUCTION
Sale: LJ8805
4:00pm - 30 March 2026
Hawthorn
VIEWING
Fri 27 - Sun 29 March, 11am - 5pm
2 Oxley Rd, Hawthorn, VIC
CONTACT
Chiara Curcio
decorativearts@leonardjoel.com.au
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