A nation's history is inevitably reflected in its public, or civic buildings. Australia's public buildings—its parliament houses, town halls, court houses, gaols, customs houses, barracks and other civic buildings-reflect very directly the rapid expansion and increasing wealth of European settlement during the nineteenth century.
This second volume in the series Historic Buildings of Australia' provides ample proof of the extent of the early settlers aspirations. Wherever settlements were established, among the first permanent buildings to be raised were the government offices, the court houses and the military or police barracks-the nucleus of the new community and the essential requirement for the maintenance of law and order.
Presented in chronological order by date of first construction, some forty buildings or groups of buildings are here described and superbly illustrated Coverage is Australia-wide-from the earliest public buildings still in existence (in Macquarie Street, Sydney, and in Hobart, Tasmania) via the grand civic buildings of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, to the equally historic and often unique buildings of Queensland and Western Australia.