Goulburn Lands Office

Old Goulburn Lands Office

The Lands Office in Goulburn was originally in Foxall’s buildings in Auburn Street. In 1887 a new courthouse was completed, and when alterations (variously reported to have cost £400 and £1000) were completed in 1888 the old courthouse became the Lands Office. The staff from the Cooma Office was transferred to Goulburn, which had been a ‘one man office’. The District Surveyor at Goulburn, Edward Twynam, was appointed Surveyor General in 1887.

The old courthouse had been designed by Colonial Architect Mortimer Lewis in the Greek Revival style and built in 1849. Dormer windows … were probably constructed during the renovation of 1888, [and] cast a bright, even light into the old drafting room.

The Lands Office is now in the State Office Building, Auburn Street.

The Goulburn District was an area of early pastoral settlement, but later in the century was upheld as an example of successful closer settlement. Thousands of ruined small farmhouses, overgrown with roses or blackberries, signify the failure of many of these small holders in drought or depression. Miles Franklin, who grew up near Goulburn, writes with strong feeling of the way of life of the Australian ‘peasant’ in her novel My Brilliant Career. Franklin contrasts the Romantic liberty of the pastoral runs of Bruggabong and Caddagat with the misery and hardship of the drought stricken small farm of Possum Gully. She strongly suggests that the agricultural peasants of the Old World have been re-created in Australia, by the Selection Acts.

Source: The Crown Lands Office Centenary Sketchbook by Ian Marr (1985).

Image: Former Court House and later Crown Lands Office Goulburn (c1900)

Were your ancestors land transactions influenced by closer settlement and the Selection Acts of the 1800s?  Please share their history.