The diligence of the clerks.(Politics, Patronage and Public Works:The Administration of New South Wales, 1842-1900, vol.1 )(Book Review)

Politics, Patronage and Public Works." The Administration of New South Wales: Volume 1, 1842-1900, by Hilary Golder; University of New South Wales Press, 2005, $59.95.

NEW SOUTH WALES proclaims itself as the Premier State. Though Australians from other states may cavil at this claim, taking the meaning of premier as supreme, its chronological definition remains sound. Not only was the first English settlement in the country in the area of what is now greater Sydney, but also the first elected parliament and responsible government fell to New South Wales. To celebrate the sesquicentenary of responsible government in the state, New South Wales State Records commissioned an administrative history.

Hilary Golder, a very fine historian, has produced what many might consider impossible: an entertaining and lively read of the history of the governance of New South Wales from 1842 until 1900. Exhaustive, precise, and written with a refreshing ear for the cadence of the written sentence, the book breaks another rule by retaining narrative strength despite a strong thematic structure.

The period encompassed is one of change, consolidation, and then further change. Although 1842 is the nominal starting point, the scope of the project is such that Golder's research moves well before this date, and the 1900 end-date is also necessarily elastic. Golder is well aware of the difficulty of her task: for example, she warns the reader that Chapter 2 is "long and labyrinthine". Yet she dissects the information clinically and cleanly. The reader need not worry; her felicity of style is welcome.

The book is well illustrated, and grey boxes of thematic material, or material that couldn't quite fit in the body of the text, but illuminates the main text, are a useful and entertaining addition. It is divided into two parts: the first four chapters are a thematic overview of the situation in New South Waleson its nominal starting date. Part Two is a more conventionally structured narrative of the development of the public service. Golder's main themes are the development of New South Wales, the growth of the public service from a gubernatorial support to a secretariat for a democratically elected parliament, and the consequent interplay of the state's administration and the burgeoning democracy. She has avoided also turning the history into just a history of the state public service; it is a history of the state in which the administration is the focus. This approach made her task undoubtedly more difficult, yet the result is highly satisfying.

One of the daunting tasks of an enterprise such as this is that Golder had the whole of State Records before her. In the preface, Shirley Fitzgerald (as Chairperson of the Board, New South Wales State Records) praises Golder's talent for synthesis, and one can only agree. Golder also has a fine eye for documents: she culls her records ruthlessly, but those she uses are picked so judiciously and examined so forensically, one is further impressed by the success of the enterprise. Narrative interest is maintained by the humanising of her story: in lesser hands this enterprise could have fallen into a rather dull bibliographic review, or worse, little more than an annotated list of records.

While she is too dispassionate to have heroes and villains in the classic sense, the major players are humanised, and it is this element that lifts it from a dull reference work to a useful and worthy book. In the dry documents of the archives, Golder has managed to reconstruct characters, personalities and conflicts. She instructs the reader in subtle interpretation: Governor Gipps's "problem" with convicts was not disciplinary but administrative; after convicts were banned from "positions of trust"--including clerical works--she notes that convicts with fine penmanship were able use these skills to be placed in geographical areas in which their skills might be needed, thereby solving the problem of keeping good people in jobs that suit them.