Summary heading

Function and purpose

This series consists of informal notes kept by George Brownbill, Secretary to the Royal Commission throughout its existence. The notes, handwritten in a sequence of small notebooks, were begun in early 1975 and continued until the end of the Royal Commission in April l977.

Generally the notes relate to evidence given at hearings or of conversations. They were most probably used as a basis for checking Transcriptions, and for writing Records of Conversation, Notes for File or notes of phone numbers. They include notes of meetings during the overseas visits.

The items of this series are described in the Inventory of Records as (CRS A12396) as series HB10. While initially separated into seven sets, this distinction has not been maintained in the serialisation by the Archives. Some items can be found in other series. The records described as Set 3 in the series description for HB10 in the Inventory of Records have been incorporated in series CRS A8913, relating to formal hearings. There is also a reference to two note books which are attachments to item EO/3/6 of CRS A12386, which largely contains administrative files.

Physical characteristics

 The items of this series are small spiral-bound notebooks.  With the exception of the earliest notebook (item 1) which is much smaller than the others, they are of a fairly uniform size  (about 12 to 15 x 20 cm)

System of arrangement and control

 The records of this series were accumulated chronologically and did not have a formal overall control except that notes compiled during the main overseas visit in late 1975 are numbered in one numerical sequence by Brownbill, starting with book 1 (Washington) and ending with book 21 (Hong Kong).

The whole collection has been arranged in one definitively chronological sequence and a simple numerical sequence has been imposed on this arrangement by the Archives.

Custodial history

 Following the closure of the Royal Commission in 1977 the records were transferred to the custody of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (in Canberra) where they remained until transferred to National Archives of Australia in 2001.