To James Patterson1    23 April 1880

Melbourne, 23rd April 1880

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Sir

In compliance with instructions received from the office of the Honorable the Chief Secretary,2 I have the honor to submit my views of the requirements of my Department as regards buildings during the financial year 1880-1881. I may be allowed to remark that during the last seven years no additional provision for buildings has been made for my departmental service, though I have not even office-rooms nor laboratory buildings ever since. Four years ago the sum of £900 was voted by Parliament, through the action of the Honorable J. Macpherson (then Chief Secretary) for the commencement of new building-accommodation in my Department,3 which sum I allowed to lapse, with a desire of seeing it doubled in the next financial year. May I therefore hope that I may at least now recover the £900, saved then by the lapse of that sum to the revenue. I leave the consideration of this however entirely to your judgement, as the additional claims on the Treasury during the Exhibition-year4 may render it expedient to postpone the grant of building-votes for my departmental purposes for an other year.5

I have the honor to be

Sir

Your obedient servant

Ferd. von Mueller

 

The Honorable the Commissioner of Public Works

1
MS written by Georg Luehmann and signed by M.
2
See W. Odgers to M, 19 April 1880 (in this edition as 80-04-19a).
3
Victoria. Papers presented to Parliament, Session 1876, vol. 1, ‘Estimates of revenue and expenditure for the year ending 30th June 1877’, p. 47 (under Commissioner of Public Works): ‘Extension and other Works, Botanical Museum, including fittings and furniture, £900-0-0’.
4
International Exhibition, Melbourne, 1880-1.
5
MS annotation: 'Adhere to works'.

Please cite as “FVM-80-04-23,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/80-04-23