VPRS 14975 Mining Claims and Title Surveys Lease Maps

This series consists of a volume of mining lease plans created and maintained by the Mines Department (VA 612). The purpose of the series was to provide easy reference to information recorded on mining lease plans.Information recorded on the lease plans included the application number, the folio number, the name of the applicant, the lease/licence that the applicant applied for and the name of the parish within which the mine was located.From the 1860's, mining had been organised by mining district. Each mining district had a separate numerical lease number sequence. The Mines Act 1958 (Act No. 6320) brought about a system change as mining districts were abandoned. New lease plans were constructed at this time with a single numerical sequence and maps were now based on parish rather than mining district.It is believed that this series was created after the changes brought about by the Mines Act 1958. As the new system required arrangement by parish, the methods of retrieval for lease maps were no longer relevant. Formerly lease plans had been part of the locality plans and arranged by mining district. The cutting of the lease plans from the locality plans enabled them to be retrievable under the new recordkeeping system by being re-organised according to parish.