The Department of Trade and Customs was an
Australian government
The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government ...
department that existed between 1901 and 1956. It was one of the inaugural government departments of Australia established at
federation
A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government ( federalism). In a federation, the self-govern ...
.
History
The department was one of the first seven Commonwealth Government departments to be established in the Federation year, 1901. The first head of the department was
Harry Wollaston
Sir Harry Newton Phillips Wollaston (17 January 184611 February 1921) was a senior Australian public servant. He was the first Comptroller-General of the Department of Trade and Customs, from 1901 to his retirement in 1911.
Life and career
...
, appointed in 1901.
In that first year, Wollaston and
Charles Kingston
Charles Cameron Kingston (22 October 1850 – 11 May 1908) was an Australian politician. From 1893 to 1899 he was a radical liberal Premier of South Australia, occupying this office with the support of Labor, which in the House of Assembly ...
worked closely together in drafting legislation and the first Commonwealth customs tariff.
[
In 1956, the department was abolished and most of its functions were split between the ]Department of Customs and Excise
The Department of Customs and Excise was an Australian government department that existed between January 1956 and March 1975.
Scope
Information about the department's functions and/or government funding allocation could be found in t ...
and the Department of Trade.
Scope
Information about the department's functions and/or government funding allocation could be found in the Administrative Arrangements Orders, the annual Portfolio Budget Statements and in the department's annual reports.
By 1906 the department was responsible for:
*bounties;
*copyrights;
*Customs and Excise;
*designs and patents;
*lighthouses, lightships, beacons, buoys;
*quarantine;
*trade and commerce (including navigation and shipping);
*trade marks, dumping, monopolies and combines;
*weights and measures; and the
*censorship of literature and films.
Structure
The department was a Commonwealth Public Service
The Australian Public Service (APS) is the federal civil service of the Commonwealth of Australia responsible for the public administration, public policy, and public services of the departments and executive and statutory agencies of the Go ...
department, staffed by officials who were responsible to the Minister for Trade and Customs.
The head of the department was the Comptroller-General, initially Harry Wollaston
Sir Harry Newton Phillips Wollaston (17 January 184611 February 1921) was a senior Australian public servant. He was the first Comptroller-General of the Department of Trade and Customs, from 1901 to his retirement in 1911.
Life and career
...
,[ and later:]
* Nicholas Lockyer (1911–13);
* Stephen Mills (1913–22);
*Percy Whitton
Percy Whitton ISO (28 January 186114 March 1923) was a senior Australian public servant. He was Comptroller-General of the Department of Trade and Customs
The Department of Trade and Customs was an Australian government department that exi ...
(1922–23);
*Robert McKeeman Oakley
Robert McKeeman Oakley (28 March 187127 August 1927) was a senior Australian public servant. He was Comptroller-General of Customs between 1923 and 1927.
Life and career
Oakley was born in Warrnambool, Victoria on 28 March 1871 to parents Eli ...
(1923–27);
*Ernest Thomas Hall
Ernest Thomas Hall was a senior Australian public servant. He was Controller-General of the Department of Trade and Customs between 1927 and 1933.
Life and career
Hall entered the Victorian Customs department in 1888. He was private secretary ...
(1927–33);
* Edwin Abbott (1933–44);
* John Kennedy (1944–49);
* Bill Turner (1949–52); and
*Sir Frank Meere
Sir Francis Anthony Meere (24 July 189515 April 1985) was a senior Australian public servant. He was Comptroller-General of Customs between 1952 and 1960, heading first the Department of Trade and Customs and then the Department of Customs and ...
(1952–56).
References
Trade and Customs
Ministries established in 1901
Foreign trade of Australia
1956 disestablishments in Australia
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