In terms of the administrative functions covered, this series can be divided into three periods:
 
(1) June 1906 - April 1911: Correspondence relating to the central administration of military, naval, and general defence matters, including correspondence marked to members of the military and naval boards of administration.
 
(2) April 1911 - July 1913: A separate Navy office registry commenced operation in 1911 and this greatly reduced the amount of material relating to naval matters handled by the Defence Department registry (only those naval matters referred to the Minister for Defence were registered within this series). The series continued to deal with military and general defence matters and to direct correspondence to the members of the military board.
 
(3) July 1913 - April 1917: Very few papers were registered in this series, a new series having been commenced for military and general defence matters. Only the subjects relating to naval matters retained their original numbers and continued to be registered within this system. As mentioned above, from April 1911 the Defence registry had handled few naval papers. The number of naval papers decreased still further after the appointment of a Minister for the Navy in 1915.
 
At the time of registration, papers received either an oval or rectangular defence stamp in which the registration was written. Dockets files were built up by attaching related papers with the latest attachment on top. Papers were put away according to the latest number. In general dockets tend to be small and contain few, if any, attached papers.
 
The system of allocating registration numbers operated as follows: Primary numbers: these were allocated to principal subjects arranged alphabetically within eight divisions: 1 - 300 NSW. 301 - 600 Vic. 601 - 900 Qld. 901 - 1200 Sth. Aust. 1201 - 1500 W. Aust. 1501 - 1800 Tas. 1801 - 2100 Commonwealth, General 2101 - 2400 Naval Some numbers at the end of each block were unallocated and were used when the need for new primary subject numbers arose.
 
Secondary and Tertiary numbers: The second number denoted the subsidiary subject division allocated when necessary, and the third number was a consecutive folio registration number allocated within the subject divisions. e.g. 2310/9/4 - Ships/Staff of Destroyers/ fourth paper registered under this subject division
 
Commonwealth Record Series (CRS) A289 contains records still physically held as accession series MP84/1, MP178/2, MP421/4 and MP1185/3 (part).  Individual record items should be requested under the number cited in RecordSearch item entry or in the paper finding aids.

Previous accession system transfers

MP84/1; MP178/2; MP421/4; MP1185/3 (part)