We are delighted that Mr Craig L. Sandy, Surveyor-General of Victoria, will be talking to RHSV members about the role of the surveyors in the establishment of Melbourne and Victoria. This event is presented in partnership with the Genealogical Society of Victoria. 

According to the Encyclopaedia of Melbourne, “In late 1836 Governor Bourke sent three surveyors, Robert Russell, Frederick D’Arcy and William Darke, together with 36 convicts, to the Port Phillip District with instructions to chart the shore of Port Phillip Bay and plot the course of the Yarra River. Russell, who was in charge of the party, chose, however, to prepare a topographical map of the area adjacent to the Yarra River to the west and east of Batmans Hill, on which he plotted the locations of the existing squatters’ dwellings. Although Russell claimed that the horses would require conditioning before they would be fit for the larger survey, Bourke was not impressed, and when he visited the settlement in February 1837 he arranged for his companion, Robert Hoddle, to take charge of the survey party. Hoddle lost no time in completing the required tasks and on 24 March 1837 forwarded to Bourke a proposed layout of the future Town of Melbourne, plotted onto Russell’s plan of the settlement. A grid pattern with the major streets practically parallel to the Yarra River, Hoddle’s layout conformed in design with the regulations Governor Darling had laid down after an inquiry in 1829.” Thus began Melbourne’s love-affair with our famous grid and the benefits of a well-surveyed town.

Mr Sandy, a licensed surveyor, is the Surveyor-General of Victoria, and Chair of the Surveyors Registration Board of Victoria, as such is the primary government authority on surveying and the cadastre. The Surveyor-General fulfils a range of statutory roles and responsibilities dealing with land and property boundaries.

Mr Sandy is also a member of the following Commissions and Committees in Victoria:

• Registrar of Geographic Names
• Victorian Electoral Boundaries Commission
• Federal Redistribution Committee for Victoria
• Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping  – Chair
• Council of Reciprocating Surveyors Board of Australia and New Zealand – former Chair

In 2020, he was awarded the Asia Pacific Spatial Excellence Award for Spatial Professional of the Year for 2019 for his work in modernisation of the cadastre and in raising awareness for mental health issues in our profession.

For the non-surveyors amongst us: “A cadastre or cadaster is a comprehensive recording of the real estate or real property’s metes-and-bounds of a country.Often it is represented graphically in a cadastral map. In most countries, legal systems have developed around the original administrative systems and use the cadastre to define the dimensions and location of land parcels described in legal documentation.

Cadastral surveys document the boundaries of land ownership, by the production of documents, diagrams, sketches, plans (plats in the US), charts, and maps. They were originally used to ensure reliable facts for land valuation and taxation. An example from early England is the Domesday Book in 1086. Napoleon established a comprehensive cadastral system for France that is regarded as the forerunner of most modern versions. The cadastre is a fundamental source of data in disputes and lawsuits between landowners. Land registration and cadastre are both types of land recording and complement each other.” (Thank you Wikipedia).

This event will be a Zoom event only. On registration, the system automatically sends you an email confirmation – these emails often end up in Junk Mail inboxes – so please check. 24 hours before the event we will send out Zoom log-in details.