Previous Find of the Month - 5/2023

May 2023

ACT/NSW Border Survey

Field books listed in UNESCO Register



Federal Survey Camp Field Book Register cover1

Our May Find of the Month features a group of records held by the ACT Government that has recently been 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 Register, a program aimed at preserving and making accessible our most significant documents. 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. 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.

It’s 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. 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. 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. Scrivener then set up a ‘Federal Camp near Queanbeyan’i in early 1909 and went about making arrangements to allow a contour survey to be undertaken for the Canberra site.


Register entry for first Territory Border Survey field book2


The next major task was to define the boundaries of the Federal Capital Territory. The shape of the territory was largely determined by the need to include a water catchment area that would secure an adequate water supply for the city of Canberra. There is an urban myth that the straight line at the north-west of the territory boundary was hurriedly surveyed as an easy option to ensure the survey work on the boundary could be completed in order to meet deadlines. This part of the boundary was in fact the first to be surveyed. In 1913 Scrivener included in his annual report of the Commonwealth Lands and Survey Branch a description of how the work commenced:

The survey and marking of the boundary between the Federal Territory lands and those of the State of New South Wales, was started by Surveyor P. L. Sheaffe, at a trigonometrical station on Mount Coree, a prominent point on the range forming the western watershed of the Cotter river, having an altitude of 4,657 feet; from Coree a straight line was run to trigonometrical station One Tree, which has an elevation of 2,863 feet…ii

Percy Sheaffe’s field book also shows that Mount Coree was the starting point of the border survey and the register of field books maintained by the Federal Survey Camp at Canberra shows the corresponding book, numbered A69, was the first to be issued for the territory border surveys. Sheaffe made recordings of this portion of the boundary between 30 June and 30 August 1910.iii



Beginning of border survey – 30 June 19103


The time taken to plot this part of the boundary was a concern to Scrivener though. As Sheaffe and his team worked along the Mount Coree-One Tree Hill line it became clear that the portions of land along the new boundary that were previously surveyed included many inaccuracies. So much so that most of the portions needed to be re-surveyed and required an amount of work ‘much greater than that of the survey and marking of the territory boundary itself’iv . The field books now inscribed in the Memory of the World register include those used for these portion re-surveys. After Sheaffe and his team completed the section of the border that ended at One Tree Hill they continued working on the north and eastern parts of the territory boundary.

The border was marked at points where it changed direction and at each mile point by timber posts and other survey marks set in place with concrete. A line of stones, called lockspits, were also used to reference a change in the direction of the boundary. Survey marks were often referenced in the field books against a nearby tree, referred to as blaze trees, which had been engraved with a chisel so that survey marks could be found in the future.

Sheaffe and his team were later supported by another team led by Harry Mouat who also began surveying from Mount Coree but worked south to plot the western part of the territory boundary. One of the few blaze trees that has survived more than a century of weather and bushfires was hand-chiselled by Mouat’s team and noted in field book A1059 to reference survey marker H87.  This tree has now been salvaged and relocated from Namadgi National Park to the nearby Visitor Information Centre to preserve its heritage value and displayed for visitors to view. It is now referred to as ‘The Mouat Tree’v.



Field book showing marker H87 and nearby ‘Mouat Tree’4


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. Digitised PDF copies of the field books can be accessed by visiting the Environment, Planning & Sustainable Development website. This web page also includes more information on the border survey. You can learn more about the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World program by visiting their website.


Example of Theodolites used in border survey5

Images

1 - UNREG-149966 - Federal Survey Camp – Field Book Record – Field Book Register 1
2 – ibid – p. 70
3 – ACT/NSW Border Survey Field Book A69 – p. 4.
4 - ACT/NSW Border Survey Field Book A1059 – p. 16.
5 - Annual Report of Lands and Survey Branch – Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Home Affairs – 1913. Appendix 7.

References

[i] A100, A1909/6981 – National Archives of Australia – Federal Capital Site – Survey Assistants to Mr Scrivener.

[1] Annual Report of Lands and Survey Branch – Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Home Affairs – 1913. p. 7.

[1] ArchivesACT – Field Book A69 & UNREG-149966 - Federal Survey Camp – Field Book Record – Field Book Register 1 – Canberra. p. 70.

[1] Annual Report of Lands and Survey Branch – Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Home Affairs – 1913. p. 7.

v The Mouat Tree – Shaping the nature of the Territory. https://themouattree.wordpress.com/the-survey-story/ .

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