Contingencies.— To provide books and papers for the library, £500; Bookbinding for the library, £25; Stationery, £50; Bookbinding, £25; Postage, £100; Fuel, £22 10s.—Water, £7 16s.—Light, £100; Incidental expenses, £100; Paper for printing Council Papers, £150. Total, £1080 6s. Total, Legislative Council, £2996 16s.
Mr. John Barker was appointed Clerk of the Council, and so continued until November, 1856, when the original Legislative body died, and two Chambers of Legislation were substituted, viz., a Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly, and to the Clerkship of the latter Mr. Barker succeeded. In this post he remained through periods of intense Parliamentary turbulence, and performed his onerous duties with an ability and impartiality which few men in such a trying position could attain. In April, 1882, he was transferred to the less onerous, though really more responsible joint office of Clerk of the Parliaments and Clerk of the Legislative Council, and his retirement from the Assembly was signalized by the well-merited compliment of a special resolution, acknowledging his invaluable services, accompanied by the presentation of a rare and costly silver souvenir, subscribed for by members of the Assembly. The clerk-assistant was Mr. Edward Khull, who was a fish-out-of-water in his new vocation, and soon made way for Mr. Charles Ridgway, who remained for many years a member of the corps of Parliamentary officials.
The first Sergeant-at-Arms was Captain Conron; he was soon succeeded by Mr. Edward Cotton, who also officiated as Registrar of the County Court, a duality that became inconvenient, and Cotton surrendered his place to Mr. William Palmer, who wields, or rather shoulders his mace, to the present period (1888). In the Old Council the Sergeant was mace-less, for that Historical Parliamentary "bauble" was not introduced as a Speaker's official double until 1856, when it crept into our Legislative system with other so-called " privileges " of the Imperial House of Commons.
The Parliament Library
Started from the smallest of beginnings, i.e., nothing. A sum of £500 was appropriated to the purchase of the intellectual pabulum required, and the earliest opportunity was taken to utilize it. One of the first sessional transactions of the Council was the appointment of the Speaker (Dr. Palmer), the Solicitor-General (Mr. Barry), Messrs. W. Westgarth, C. J. Griffith, and J. P. Fawkner, as a Library Committee. A catalogue of the books and periodicals required for a start was prepared, and entrusted to Mr. Henry Moor, who was about leaving for England.
In February, 1853, the temporary apartment erected at rear of St. Patrick's Hall, was shaped into a Library, and Ridgway, the Clerk-Assistant, was appointed Librarian. Early in April, a shipment of eleven cases of books, &c., arrived in the Bay. Ridgway nursed his infant Library as affectionately as a fond mother tends her first-born babe, and beheld it increase and multiply each year. In 1856 the Library was formed into a distinct department of the new Parliament Houses, and its dry nurse was most deservedly promoted to the position of Chief Guardian, and so stayed for several years to within a short period of his death. Few persons who have not witnessed the extraordinary change that has taken place in the Parliament Library can form any conception of what it once was and now is, from the time when it was domiciled in a single weather-board room a few yards square, to its transfer to the magnificent structure in which it is now tenanted. As is well-known, the Parliament Library of 1888 is an eastern adjunct of the Parliament buildings on a level with the two Chambers of Legislation. It consists of the main Library, with an area of 70 feet by 45 feet, and the north and south corridors, 50 feet by 25 feet, flanking it on each side.
The First Victorian Legislature.
The elected members were thus notified in the Government Gazette:—
North Bourke: Charles Hilton Dight, and John Thomas Smith; South Bourke, Evelyn, and Mornington: Henry Miller; Grant: John Henry Mercer; Normanby, Dundas and Follett: James
