Guide 3 to NSW State Archives relating to Responsible Government - OCR - Flipbook - Page 109
A Guide to New South Wales State Archives relating to Responsible Government
Included are papers relating to: Returning Officers
(recommendations for appointments, accepting appointments,
acknowledging receipt of Commissions, resignations); declarations
of Returning Officers, Presiding Officers and Poll Clerks; requests
for ballot boxes, information about election procedures, and for
payment of election expenses; acknowledgement of the receipt of
electoral rolls, forms and of writs; seeking approval to print the
voting or ballot papers locally; transmission of copies of notices
inserted in the local paper; complaints about the shortness of time
between the nomination date and the polling date; returning the
writ; and, returns of Presiding Officers and Poll Clerks, or of
Presiding Officers only. When returning the writ, rather than just
the name of the successful candidate some Returning Officers
have provided fairly detailed information about the results of the
poll — by polling place, votes for each candidate and the number
of informal votes.
Also included are: recommendations for additional polling places;
minutes for the Executive Council recommending the appointment
or cancellation of polling places; representations or petitions from
Members of the Legislative Assembly, inhabitants and electors re
polling places and/or places of nomination; four writs of elections
which have been superseded because of mistakes made in the
writ; and, a letter from the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of
28 January 1875 (CSIL 75/699) acknowledging receipt of a
Commission empowering him to administer "the Oath or
Affirmation of Allegiance to Her Majesty required to be taken or
made by Members of the Legislative Assembly before they sit or
vote therein".
Among the more interesting papers are those relating to protests,
eg protests by electors against the manner in which the Poll for
the 1874 Election was taken at Gunnedah in the Liverpool Plains
Electoral District, that the booth was closed 15 minutes before its
proper time (before 4 pm). There are papers relating to protests
and complaints made in 1872: the Attorney General's opinion
respecting protests in cases of disputed elections and returns;
petition from electors at Coonamble respecting an alleged
irregularity in proceedings connected with the election for the
Bogan; protest by constituents of the Williams Electorate against
the declaration of John Nowlan as the duly elected representative
for the Electorate; protest against Leopold William Fane De Salis
being elected for Queanbeyan by one of the candidates Charles H
Walsh; and a protest against Edward Greville being declared duly
elected for the Braidwood Electorate by George Underwood Alley.
Dr Ramsay, Returning Officer, Mudgee, 1875-77
Dr Wilson Ramsay was Returning Officer for the Mudgee Electoral
District as well as Government Medical Officer and Vaccinator for
the District of Gulgong. He was accused, first anonymously then
by a John Archibald Courtis, of misconduct as a Returning Officer
including appointing lads to the performances of duties of Poll
Clerks.
State Records Authority of New South Wales
CGS 906,
[4/807.3]
107
