How did New South Wales work in the second half of the nineteenth century? "Politics, Patronage and Public Works" analyses government structures, functions, processes and personnel from 1842 to 1900, in this first of two volumes, commissioned by the State Records Authority of New South Wales. The early 1840s saw the campaign for colonial self-government gain momentum, driven by massive social and political change. Pressure - such as the growth and dispersal of the population; the government's direct responsibility for expensive infrastructure; and the democratic, disorganised nature of colonial politics - necessitated administrative innovation and improvisation. Government was responsible for an exponential growth in the number of colonial public servants, including armies of railway workers and teachers. By 1895 this expansion had become unaffordable and the Public Service Board was set up to retrench and regulate government employment and priorities. To a large extent the Board created its own administrative history - reformers condemning the previous arrangements as extravagant, inefficient and even corrupt.
Hilary Golder's history locates administrative developments in their social and political context, showing how the administration of New South Wales developed in response to a set of distinctively Australian problems and solutions. She has drawn on parliamentary papers, politicians' private correspondence and the rich resource of surviving government records to attempt a more sympathetic reading of the administrative challenges in a growing colony.