The series consists of the records created by the Convention and its Clerk, E G Blackmore and Assistant Clerk, F W Webb.  The records are various types:- petitions (some in the form of scrolls), correspondence, newspapers, drafts of the Bill for the Establishment of a Federal Constitution, as well as the usual products of this type of forum - notices of motion, amendments, minutes of meetings, proceedings and reports.

No system of arrangement or control is apparent, although Blackmore kept 'files' of related papers in envelopes labelled eg. 'Gratuities 1898'. There is no trace of an index.

The records in this series were transferred from the South Australian House of Assembly in 1969 to the South Australian State Library/Archives, and thence to the Australian Archives in 1971 (as part of AA1971/506), and also from the New South Wales Legislative Assembly to the Australian Archives in 1987 (as part of ASP1987/21).

The history of the records is outlined by J A La Nauze in his book "The Making of the Australian Constitution" (p.201).

In August 1969 the Australian Archives received a list of the records, listing them in groups according to session.  However, while the records in South Australia were in the custody of the State Library/State Archivist from 1969-1971, most of them were microfilmed. Before this was done, the records were arranged according to type of record rather than chronologically.  They were controlled as GRG72, and given series and item numbers.

The records are now arranged as near to the probable original order as possible, ie chronologically by order of session and within each session by groups of papers according to type of record.  At this level ie. the item level, papers as a rule were not separated from the envelopes which seem to constitute Blackmore's filing system.

A list of the GRG numbers and the new numbers imposed by the Australian Archives is located at the beginning of the inventory of items.

The records from the New South Wales Legislative Assembly are apparently a collection assembled by Webb which remained in New South Wales only because Webb was also the Clerk to the Legislative Assembly.  These records included the Finance Committee records now controlled as CRS R215.  There was no numbering system apparent.  Except for the Finance Committee records, these have now been incorporated with the South Australian records to form one series.  On the inventory of items, the items formerly controlled as GRG72 are indicated as such, thus all other items came from the NSW group.

These records were converted from AA1971/506 and ASP1987/21.

Because of the inter-Colonial nature of the Convention and its "raison d'etre" it is considered that, in addition to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Departments of the Senate and the House of Representatives, the following State Parliaments of states involved in the Convention also have a shared controlling interest in the records:

Legislative Assembly, New South Wales
House of Assembly, South Australia
House of Assembly, Tasmania
Legislative Assembly, Victoria
Legislative Assembly, Western Australia

[Note: Queensland was not represented at the convention.]

Agency controlling unregistered

1901- :Legislative Assembly, New South Wales
1901- :House of Assembly, South Australia
1901- :House of Assembly, Tasmania
1901- :Legislative Assembly, Victoria
1901- :Legislative Assembly, Western Australia