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- 1902 - 1972 (Creation)
- 1897-05-14 - 1992-08-20 (Accumulation)
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Administrative history
The Department of Lands and Surveys was one of the oldest government agencies in Western Australia, having been constituted under the name of the Survey Office in 1829. The Office became the Surveyor-General's Department in 1870 and was organized into two branches - Crown Lands and Surveys. The Department was administered by the Surveyor-General who also held the title of Commissioner of Crown Lands.
The Department was restyled the Crown Lands and Surveys Department in 1873 and, in 1890, the Department of Land and Surveys.
The Department of Lands and Surveys was responsible for the leasing and alienation of Crown Lands (except where mining and forestry tenures were involved*), the reservation of land for public purposes and roads, the surveying and classifying of land, and the exploration and mapping of the State. From its inception, the Department was also active in promoting immigration and settlement, and until 1973 was responsible for administering various Assisted Passage Immigration Schemes.
Immigration remained one of the functions of the Department until 1986, and the Department was responsible for the administration of the Noalimba Reception Centre.
Following a functional review, the Department was reorganized and renamed the Department of Land Administration in 1986.
- Initially, the Department was responsible for virtually all aspects of land administration, but with the establishment of the Department of Mines (1893) and the Forests Department (1919), it relinquished control of mining and forestry matters.
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Scope and content
This series consists of 80 Chain Cancelled Public Plans of selected areas of Western Australia (mainly the South West region). The scale is 80 chains to one inch and the plans are based on the Bonne Modified Conical Projection which provided for small, medium and large scale mapping of the state.
In 1902, sheets of the 80 Chain series began to be used as bases for Public Plans.
Before 1902, Public Plans of some of the areas covered by this 80 Chain series were drawn on sheets of the S, C, G and M series (see Record Series No. 979) as well as on later district plans.
As early as 1905, some Public Plans on sheets of this series were cancelled to, and continued on sheets of the 40 Chain series (Record Series No. 4264) for more populated areas. It is in the 1960's that the phasing out of the 80 Chain series got under way in favour of new cadastral editions of sheets constructed on the Universal Transverse Mercator Projection, with sheets lines conforming to the Australian National Map Grid. In the 1970's, as the need arose, some of the Public Plans on the 80 Chain sheets were continued on sheets of the State Large Scale Mapping System, both on 1:10,000 and 1:2,000 scale. The gradual retirement of the 80 Chain sheets proceeded into the 1990's.
Item listings for this series give plan and sheet numbers, the date range of each sheet and the tally number assigned to each item. The plans in this series are held at the State Records Office at consignment 5386.
[NB: Originally, this series included map consignments pertaining to different scales, e.g. 40 Chain plans, 300 Chain plans, etc. In 2010, the State Records Office established separate series for each collection of plans so that they now sit in their distinct series, as per the Succeeding and Related Series relationships].
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Archivist's note
Copies: Digital copies of the first 534 of these plans are available online - choose the appropriate Record Item and then click on the link at "Digital Copy". Copies of these plans are also held by Landgate (Midland) on aperture card.