The Surveyor-General of Victoria is the public service officer nominally responsible for

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

surveying Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the land, terrestrial Plane (mathematics), two-dimensional or Three-dimensional space#In Euclidean geometry, three-dimensional positions of Point (geom ...

Victoria, Australia Victoria, commonly abbreviated as Vic, is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state (after Tasmania), with a land area of ; the second-most-populated state (after New South Wales), with a population of over 7 million; ...

. The original duties for the Surveyor-General were to measure and determine land grants for settlers in Victoria. (see

History of Victoria The history of Victoria refers to the history of the Australian state of Victoria and the area's preceding Indigenous and British colonial societies. Before British colonisation of Australia, many Aboriginal peoples lived in the area now ...

). The Surveyor-General continues to be the primary government authority on surveying and the

cadastre A cadastre or cadaster ( ) is a comprehensive recording of the real estate or real property's metes-and-bounds of a country.Jo Henssen, ''Basic Principles of the Main Cadastral Systems in the World,'/ref> Often it is represented graphically in ...

(land property boundaries and tenure). The Surveyor-General is also the Chair of the Surveyors Registration Board of Victoria (formerly the Surveyors Board of Victoria) and also holds the appointment of the Registrar of Geographic Names. In addition, the Surveyor-General is a member of the Electoral Boundaries Commission of Victoria and a member of the Federal Electoral Redistribution Committee for Victoria. The Surveyor-General is a State Verifying Authority for the measurement of length. The Surveying Act 2004, Act 47/2004, Part 6, specifies the appointment, suspension and functions of the Surveyor-General. Note that the Act spells "Surveyor-General" with a hyphen, which is the conventional spelling. The Surveyor-General is required to be a Licensed Surveyor. The Surveyor-General was originally created as a department following the separation in July 1851 of the Port Phillip District from the Colony of New South Wales to establish the Colony of Victoria. Prior to that, Port Phillip was a district branch of the NSW Surveyor-General’s Department. The Surveyor-General initially also held political office, being a member of the Victorian Legislative Council 1851-1855 and then as a Minister 1855-57. Thereafter, it changed from being that of a Ministry to a public service role as Commissioner of Crown Lands and Survey and also the Surveyor-General. During its history, the Office of Surveyor-General has come under a range of different departments and divisions, with different reporting arrangements. It has also downsized, and responsibilities changed.Surveyor-General’s Department 1851-57, Public Records Office Victoria, https://prov.vic.gov.au/archive/VA2921 Previous responsibilities of the Surveyor-General have included being the Guardian of Aborigines, which was transferred from the Chief Secretary to the Surveyor-General in 1856. Subsequently, it was assumed by the Board of Land and Works, under the Department of Crown Lands and Survey in 1857. The planning for and surveying of proposed railway lines in Victoria also became an important role. In May 1856, a sub-department of railways within the Surveyor-General's Department. It was established within this Department because the prime function of 'Victorian Railways' was, at that time, the survey of proposed lines of railway. In the post Second World War period, the Surveyor-General was also Director of Mapping, but in 1995 lost this position to the Office of Geographic Data Coordination (OGDC) which became the Land Information Group (LIG) under Land Victoria. The responsibilities have continued with another business unit under what is now Land Use Victoria.

Sesquicentenary of the Surveyor-General Victoria 2001

List of Surveyors-General of Victoria

References

{{Reflist

Sources

Lists of British, Australian and New Zealand Surveyors-General, Government Geologists...
Retrieved 5 September 2016
Australian Dictionary of Biography Surveyor-General search
Retrieved 14 June 2012 *