Colonial Secretary's Correspondence
By Belinda Aldridge, Preservation Services | 4 July 2023
In responding to an enquiry, one of our librarians came across a letter from Queen Victoria to her Secretary of State for the Colonies, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The letter contained information about the naming of Queensland. As the Queen’s handwriting was difficult to decipher, the Senior Archivist from the Royal Archives, Windsor Castle was consulted. Thanks to their expertise the following transcription was kindly provided:
‘The Queen acknowledges Sir Ed. B. Lytton’s letter of the 24th. She had not forgotten his question with respect to the name for “Morton Bay”, but had wished to see Sir Ed. B. Lytton upon the subject and then heard he was out of Town; Lord Derby undertook to mention the subject to Sir E. B. Lytton but seems not to have done so.
The Queen now suggests either “Queen’s Land” or “Saxon Land” – She has chosen New Westminster for the Capital of British Columbia. The Queen Hopes that Sir E. B. Lytton’s health has improved’.
Image from Trove https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1224201254/view
Obviously, the name “Queensland” was chosen over “Saxon Land”. As the sixth of June has just passed – the date considered the birth day of Queensland, it is interesting to think about the State’s colonial history. On the 6 June 1859, Queen Victoria approved and signed Letters Patent to establish the new colony of Queensland. This signalled the official separation from the British-administered colony of New South Wales. However, the proclamation of the separation of the two colonies took place later that year on 10 December 1859.
Image of a watercolour painting of Moreton Bay Settlement New South Wales 1835. http://hdl.handle.net/10462/deriv/151236
State Library of Queensland holds a microfilm copy of the Colonial Secretary’s letters received relating to Moreton Bay and Queensland . Our collection of the Colonial Secretary’s letters relates to the colony prior to its separation from New South Wales and is from the larger collection of Colonial Secretary’s Office papers which are held at State Records New South Wales. Queensland Colonial Secretary correspondence from 1860 is held at the Queensland State Archives.
Recently State Library digitised the large and historically significant collection of 42,000 pages of letters and documents. Accompanying these digitised pages are machine generated transcripts. Currently volunteers are engaged in reviewing and correcting these transcripts using the FromThePage platform: Colonial Secretary’s Correspondence project. This will improve accessibility and make it easier for people to find names and topics in this collection.
In addition, State Library staff are identifying individual letters in the collection and progressively making them available through the library catalogue – for the latest content see our Collection Guide to the correspondence.
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