VPRS 5807 Court of Petty Sessions, Licensing and Other Papers

This series consists of a bundle of documents of licensing applications, mostly for the issue of Refreshment Licenses, and other documents. Up to 1886 registers of applications for liquor and non-liquor licences were created and maintained in local courts of petty sessions at which annual, quarterly and general sittings of justices of the peace, licensing benches or licensing magistrates occurred. Under the Licensing Act 1885 (40 Vic.,No.857) Victoria was divided into Licensing Districts and Licensing Courts were constituted for each Licensing District to hear and determine liquor licence applications. Licence Registers extant for the period 1886 to 1890 often document the transition of responsibility from the courts of petty sessions to the licensing courts. In most country areas the same volume continued to be used for liquor and non-liquor licence applications until circa 1890 when new stationery was introduced specifically for liquor licence applications. Between 1886 and 1890 the pages which record proceedings of the Licensing Court are annotated to show that they are a record of that authority. In this particular instance, however, a licensing register has yet to be located or the period covered by these documents. It is possible that one was not created with these process documents retained instead. This series was transferred to PROV by the University of Melbourne Archives which had originally received them as part of the E.J. Semmens Collection.

本系列档案包含一批许可证申请相关文件，其中以茶酒经营许可证（Refreshment Licenses）申请材料为主，同时附带其他相关文件。截至1886年，当地治安小审法庭（courts of petty sessions）——即定期举行治安法官、许可法庭或治安推事年度、季度及全体庭审的基层司法机构——已创建并维护了酒类与非酒类许可证申请登记册。根据1885年《许可法》（40 Vic.,No.857），维多利亚州被划分为多个许可管辖区（Licensing Districts），每个管辖区均设立专属许可法院（Licensing Courts），负责审理并裁决酒类许可证申请。1886年至1890年间留存的许可证登记册，通常完整记录了许可权限从治安小审法庭向许可法院转移的历史进程。在大部分乡村地区，同一卷宗会持续用于酒类与非酒类许可证申请的登记，直至约1890年，专门针对酒类许可证申请的全新制式表单才正式启用。1886年至1890年间，所有记录许可法院庭审流程的页面均附有标注说明，以明确其作为该司法机构官方档案的属性。但就本系列档案所覆盖的时间段而言，尚未找到对应的官方许可证登记册，不排除当时并未制作该登记册，仅留存了相关流程文件的可能性。本系列档案最初由墨尔本大学档案馆作为E.J.塞门斯藏品（E.J. Semmens Collection）的一部分入藏，后移交至维多利亚州公共档案办公室（Public Record Office Victoria，PROV）。