NRS-976 | Copies of letters to the judicial establishment, the Sheriff and the Coroners

Letters to Judges of the Supreme Court and officers of the Court, the Courts of Quarter Sessions, Courts of Requests, Law Officers and Coroners; to July 1828 the Sheriff and to 1829 the Governor of Sydney Gaol. Letters to the Sheriff after July 1828 are in a separate series (NRS 1000). Saxe Bannister took up his appointment as Attorney General in April 1824 on much the same basis as his counterpart in England and in the same year John Stephen assumed the Solicitor Generalship as an unpaid adjunct to his office of Commissioner of the Court of Requests. He was to be purely a deputy or assistant for the Attorney General "not to be officially consulted or employed in any case in which the Attorney General may be able properly to conduct the Public Business without such assistance". The Solicitor General's was created a separate paid office in 1827 in order to render the Attorney General more efficient assistance and to provide a deputy for him in case of death or absence. For a time while Kinchela was Attorney General most of his work fell upon Plunkett, the Solicitor General, and in 1836 the Solicitor Generalship was abolished upon Kinchela's enforced retirement and Plunkett's elevation to his office. It was reinstituted, however, in 1843 after repeated representation by the Governor, and in 1856 both Attorney General and Solicitor General became ministers of the crown, the latter being superseded in that capacity by a Minister of Justice in 1873. In 1856 much of the business that was previously handled by the Colonial Secretary, was transferred to the jurisdiction of the new ministers; and the contents of this series of letter books decline in importance until finally the letters are almost entirely devoted to the appointment of Justices of the Peace and the transmission of oaths taken by them. (4/3736-75; microfilm copy SR Reels 624-653). 40 vols. Note:This description is based on Concise Guide to the State Archives of New South Wales, 3rd Edition 2000.