This series consists of three bound copies of the 'History of Commonwealth Rationing Commission 1942 - 1950' and its associated appendices.
The history was compiled by the Rationing Commission as a response to instructions that a history of the activities of war-time departments should be recorded. The preface to the volume states that the object of the history was to "record the administrative system and practice of the Commonwealth Rationing Commission" so that should rationing be reintroduced the administrators would be able to benefit from the experience of the Commission.
The volume is divided into eleven parts (A - K) each part having a separate title, it describes the administrative system and practice of the Commission; formation of the Commission; scope of rationing regulations and orders; date of, and reason for the introduction of rationing on each commodity; co-operation with trade; general principles of coupon control; administration of rationing in the various states; and the details of the rationing of each commodity namely - clothing, tea, sugar, butter, and meat. The history also includes a list of the Ministers in charge of rationing, members of the Rationing Commission, and Directors and Deputy Directors of Rationing.
The history has 226 pages and a thirteen page table of contents for the Appendices at the back of the volume. The appendices include rationing regulations and orders; Commission agenda; specimen ration documents and forms; General Instructions to staff; statistics relating to all aspects of the rationing of various commodities, including imports, deliveries and supplies; reports of inter-departmental conferences; booklets on overseas rationing; summary of prosecution results; public relations pamphlets, posters and radio scripts. The appendices are collected from a variety of sources e.g. excerpts from Commonwealth Gazettes, press statements etc. Some appear to be original documents, others summaries of information held on other documents. The appendices also include separate regional histories of the administration of rationing in the states of Australia - possibly written by the Deputy Directors of Rationing in those states. [See below for updated information on authorship of History)
The appendices themselves are held separately from the main volume and make up the bulk of this series. Each group of appendices relates to a section of the history and has the letter of that section as the first part of their control symbol. A consecutive number is then given to each appendix within the group. For example Part A of the volume has eight appendices numbered from A1 to A8, while Part B has appendices B1 to B6 etc. An appendix may be further divided into sections and these are also numbered, thus Appendix A1 has three sections numbered from A1/1 to A1/3. A1/1 contains Rationing Regulations, A1/2 contains Rationing Declarations and A1/3 contains Rationing Delegations. The sections are, for the most part, contained within a single folder and the divisions indicated by a cardboard marker. Sometimes each section consists of a folder and the folders are tied together with a title folder on the top. In two cases the sections, for the purposes of identification by staff at the NAA have been treated as separate items; these are Appendix A5 which has ten separate parts, and Appendix H4 which has two parts H4/1 and H4/2 contained in ring binders which could not be tied together to form one item.
The majority of the appendices are housed in buff coloured folders which have the following handwritten information on the cover "Commonwealth of Australia, Rationing Commission 1942 - 19__, History of Rationing, Appendix, Appendix (no)." There is usually also an index within the cover of the title folder of each appendix listing its sections and their headings.
It is unclear when the compiling and writing of this history and its appendices began. It would appear that the Central Administration of the Rationing Commission requested comments from the various states regarding their administration of rationing in July 1948. However, it is unknown who actually wrote the text in the volume and of some of the appendices. It would appear that the final draft of the history was completed around the end of August 1950 and given to the Victorian Government Printer to be bound.
Seventy five copies were ordered, to be distributed to the Minister for Trade and Customs, and senior officials of the Rationing Commission as well as the offices of the Commonwealth Archives. Copies of the volume as well as the appendices were transferred to Professor J. Butlin (Official War Historian) in 1950 for use in his official history 'War Economy 1942 - 1945'. These copies and the appendices were transferred from the University of Sydney to the NAA, Victoria in 1972. [See below for updated information on authorship and publication]
A single number has been imposed on each copy of the volume.
These records were converted from MP5/85, Departmental history of rationing of clothing and food, 1942-1950 and MP1289/1, History of Commonwealth Rationing Commission, 1942-1950.
In 1991 for preservation reasons a sample copy of one each of the posters in items C2, H1, H6, K6 and K7, was removed from their original items and placed into a separate consignment, CRS B5641/2. As at 2002, 27 posters are held in B5641/2 and have been imposed with a single number by the NAA, Victoria.
In 2008, this arrangement was amended to identify the removed posters as sub-items to the parent or original item. The sub-item/parent item relationship requires that both items have the same controlling symbol therefore the previously imposed single number system was removed. To ensure a search in RecordSearch using the single number will still return the item this imposed single number was placed in the item entry 'alternative control symbol’ field. This arrangement meant that these items located in B5641/2 were returned to B5641/1 as sub-items of their original item. Although they are now held separately from their parent item, for preservation reasons they are still controlled by the parent item control symbol and transfer job B5641/1. B5641/2 has been cancelled.
Further research was undertaken by staff at National Archives of Australia to determine the authorship of this Rationing Commission ‘History’. Documents held in other series created by the Rationing Commission indicate that “…officers of the [Rationing Commission] Central Administration” 1collated the statistics and notes provided by various sources into the narrative text of the ‘History’.
Documented instructions were given to the Binding department of the Government Printer in Melbourne for twenty-four copies of the ‘History’ to be ‘inscribed’ with the names of recipients to whom copies were to be sent ‘with compliments’. The nominal inscription on the cover of the volume was to be done in the same gold embossed printing as the title “History of Rationing in Australia’. The recipients of these specially bound volumes were persons involved with the running of the wartime Rationing Commission or contributed in some way to the creation of the ‘History’. For example W T Turner, Esquire from the Department of Trade and Customs, Canberra; and 3A S Brown, Esquire from the Prime Minister’s Department, Canberra are on this list. In total, 36 copies of the ‘History’ were to be bound by the Government Printer in Melbourne. This series contains three of these bound copies.
1 CRS B5661/1; item 1943/2359
2 CRS B5661/1; item 1950/49
3 Accession series AA1972/341; item 259