Secretary for Mines (New South Wales)
Government minister in the state of New South Wales, Australia
The Secretary for Mines was a ministry first established in 1874 in the first ministry of Henry Parkes. It went through various title changes, becoming the Minister for Mines in 1959 then variations on Minister for Mineral Resources.
Role and responsibilities
In 1872-3 there was a rush of application for mineral leases covering 750,000 acres (300,000 ha), which were required to be dealt with by the Secretary for Lands. The ministry was created from the responsibilities of the Secretary for Lands and the first minister, James Farnell, was also the Secretary for Lands. The initial tasks for the minister were establishing the Board of Mines, a school of mines and mineralogical museum. The minister was responsible for the department of mines, which included mining wardens, registrars, bailiffs and surveyors. The department also included agricultural regulation, including sheep and cattle inspectors and the registration of brands.
The agricultural responsibilities were recognised from 1890 when the title was changed to Secretary for Mines and Agriculture, until 1907 when a separate Minister for Agriculture was created. In 1959 the ministry was renamed Minister for Mines.
The resources portfolio was occasionally combined with the energy portfolio between 1984 and 2017.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Secretary for Mines (New South Wales)” as government minister in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as government minister in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q104634246. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1874, 1959, 1872 and 1890.
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This entry incorporates text from “Secretary for Mines (New South Wales)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.