ArchivesACT is celebrating the international recognition of Canberra’s ACT/NSW Border Survey Field Books in its May Find of the Month.
Archives said this month’s find featured a group of records held by the ACT Government that was recently recognised for its significance to Canberra’s documentary heritage.
“Last month, a nomination was accepted for the ACT/NSW Border Survey Field Books (field books) to be inscribed into UNESCO’s Australian Memory of the World (AMW) Register, a program aimed at preserving and making accessible our most significant documents,” Archives said.
“This entry into the Register places the field books alongside other collections such as the Mabo Case Manuscripts, Journals of the First Fleet and papers held by the Public Record Office Victoria relating to Ned Kelly,” it said.
“The field books record the detailed work carried out by the surveyors to map the border in what were often trying conditions and remote locations.”
Archives said it was helpful to remember that the surveys to define the Federal Capital Territory (now known as the Australian Capital Territory) weren’t the first to be done in the Canberra area.
It said Yass and Queanbeyan had been well established long before a national capital was thought of.
“First squatters, and then selectors, encroached upon Ngunnawal land that required surveyors to delineate selected boundaries,” Archives said.
“When it was finally decided that a Federal Capital would be built somewhere in the Yass-Canberra district, Charles Scrivener, then a District Surveyor for the New South Wales government, was ‘loaned’ to the Commonwealth to help settle on an exact location.”
Archives said the surveying work and associated marking of the border was completed in 1915.
“As with the Mouat Tree, the ACT/NSW border survey field books have been recognised as significant cultural artefacts and are still used as the primary record for the location of the border between the ACT and NSW,” it said.
“Digitised PDF copies of the field books can be accessed by visiting the Environment, Planning & Sustainable Development website.”
ArchivesACT’s May Find of the Month can be accessed at this PS News link and UNESCO’s AMW Register at this link.
