NRS-16894 | Minutes of the Town Hall Committee / Town Hall and Municipal Property Committee / Municipal Property and Lighting Committee [Leichhardt Council]

This series consists of minutes from the Town Hall Committee later the Town Hall and Municipal Property Committee and later again the Municipal Property and Lighting Committee of Leichhardt Council. The minutes have been arranged chronologically by date of meeting and record details of meeting dates and times and names of persons attending. The minutes are generally signed by the Committee Chairman and stamped with details of the Council meeting at which recommendations have been read and adopted (or revised).Section 109 of the Municipalities Act of 1867 (Act 31 Vic. No.12), which was assented to on 23 December 1867, allowed municipal councils to appoint either standing committees or occasional (special) committees, composed of councillors, and to delegate to the committees 'any inquiry negotiation or arrangement or power to do any emergent act or to carry out any work which such Council may have ordered agreed to or directed'. However, Committees had to report to the council at the earliest opportunity. Section 45 of the Local Government Act 1906 gave councils the right to acquire, erect and maintain a town hall or other municipal building.Business at initial meetings of the committee related to construction of the Leichhardt Town Hall which was officially opened on 26 September 1888. Town Hall matters included construction and maintenance work, appointment of a caretaker, letting of tenders, furniture and fittings, hire of the building and its facilities to individuals and organisations, finances and accounting. Matters dealt with in later minutes relate to the maintenance and use of the Town Hall and surrounds, and other council properties (e.g. Leichhardt Swimming Baths). This broadening of purpose is reflected by the in the name of committee which was changed to the Town Hall and Municipal Property Committee around 1919. During 1941 the Town Hall and Municipal Property committee and Lighting committee began to be combined and by January 1942 the committees name had changed to reflect this, with it now being referred to as the Municipal Property and Lighting Committee.From 6 March 1907 a separate volume was used to record the reports (as distinct from the minutes) of the Committee and from April 1910 the reports and minutes, while still two distinct documents, were bound together with the minutes and reports of other Council committees. During this period, matters dealt with by the Town Hall committee were allocated running minute numbers, recorded in the margins of the pages in the volumes. These sequences of minute numbers carried over from volume to volume within the series. From 1930 onwards the minutes and reports of each committee meeting were combined into the one document.