department towards the close of the year, was thus organised:-Sub-Treasurer, William Lonsdale, Esq., £400 per annum; First Clerk, Mr. W. V. MacVitie, £220 per annum; Second Clerk, Mr. George R. Penn, £125 per annum; Agent for superintending supplies, Assistant Commissary General Howard, £91 5s. per annum; Auctioneers' commission (land sales it is presumed), £600 per annum; Newspapers, Stationery, Printing, etc., £300 per annum; Rent of Office and Incidental Expenses, £76 5s. 8d. per annum. Total, 1812 10s. 8d.
Some of the changes of the locale of the office have been already stated. The Treasury followed the Superintendent from Batman's Hill to the Government offices, where it was assigned a portion on the ground floor, after which it migrated to a big blue-stone house, a little more North on the other side of William Street. Here it remained for some years until after the gold discoveries, when, re-crossing, it took up its abode in a three-storied tenement belonging to Mr. J. T. Smith, whence again it moved Eastward to the new Treasury, at the top of Bourke Street, and thence, back to the new Government offices in the rear, where it is likely to remain in perpetuity. Captain Lonsdale was more successful as a Police Magistrate than a Treasurer. No one doubted his thorough integrity; but his new post was not quite in his line. As in most of the departments in the early times, business was not transacted in anything approaching the method that has prevailed for the last quarter of a century. Then the public book-keeping was simplicity itself, compared with the complicated and cumbersome system of to-day. One very efficient, though at times, careless officer suffered for the Captain's laxity. This was Mr. MacVitie, the first Chief Clerk, whose trial for embezzlement will be noticed in another chapter. He was acquitted by the jury, and the Treasury management censured by the Judge. However MacVitie lost his place which was filled by the appointment of Mr. Alexander M'Crae; and some time after, a roll of notes, believed to be the same for appropriating which MacVitie had been tried, was found put away in some musty pigeon hole, wherein the ex-Chief Clerk most likely in absence of mind thrust, and entirely forgot it. In 1851, Captain Lonsdale exchanged the Treasury for the first Colonial Secretaryship, for which he was infinitely less fitted, and Mr. M'Kenzie, the then Sheriff, succeeded him. The first competitive examination in the colony was held in connection with the Treasury, in June, 1845. A clerkship was vacant by the dismissal of a young gentleman, whose ways were rather too fast for Captain Lonsdale. The salary was only a hundred a year, which, with the position it carried, was considered not a very bad thing, as matters then went, and board and residence could be had for a moderate figure. The examination was held at the Custom House and conducted by Mr. Cassells (Sub-Collector of Customs) and Mr. Hoddle (Chief of the Survey Department). candidates offered, but the general bad answering reduced them to three, viz., Messrs. Charles Vaughan, H. N. Hull, and G. F. Belcher, amongst whom the "who shall" heat was to be run off. Belcher's was the best all round answering, but there was a particular question of Cassells' which only Hull succeeded in mastering, and upon him victory smiled accordingly. He wasn't long berthed, however, when he obtained leave of absence, and his brother, Mr. W. H. Hull, was appointed locum tenens. As the absentee never returned to his post, the temporary incumbency became a permanency, and the Treasury thus, without the virtue of competition, obtained the services of an excellent officer, who for so many years acted as Paymaster at Melbourne, and retired from the Civil Service some time ago. Belcher obtained a Treasury appointment, without competition, the following year, and through intelligence and efficiency, he ascended to some of the highest branches of the official tree. In after time he became Sub-Treasurer at Geelong, where he remained until he resigned to the regret of all ever brought into official relations with him. A consolation stake was also reserved for Vaughan in a clerkship in the office of the Superintendent, where he continued until after the district was separated from New South Wales, when he became a brewer in Collingwood, and was well-known as the Vaughan of Vaughan and Wild, in Smith Street. But a high municipal and political future was in store for Messrs. Belcher and Vaughan, and the Fates shunted them along in similar grooves, for Belcher was the best Mayor Geelong ever had, and Vaughan the most popular Civic Chief that ever "ruled the roost" in the Council Chamber, at Fitzroy. Both of them also found their way into the Legislative Council. Vaughan has long since gone to his last account. Belcher was recognised as one of the most consistent and independent members in the Upper Chamber of our legislature, until his retirement to private life at Geelong, where he still resides.
