Information transferred from Manuscripts Index Catalogue as part of the eRecords Project, 2013-2014

Chief Secretary Department

The Great Seal was one of a number of legal 'instruments' created to extend Royal authority to the Pacific and permit the operation of British law in the Colony of N.S.W. As the King's representative in the region, was required to affix the Great Seal of N.S.W. to any official documents he signed, such as Commissions, Pardons and Deeds of Land Grant, in order to legitimise them. The design and motto used (in various configurations) on the first five Great Seals of N.S.W. makes reference to the hopes of its designers that N.S.W would flourish, and it is particularly apt that the design sealed documents which would help secure the colony's future.

The seal shows on its obverse (front) a design that alludes to the intended redemptive qualities of the convict settlement, and was described in a Royal Warrant for the seal as follows:

Convicts landed at Botany Bay; their fetters taken off and received by Industry, sitting on a bale of goods with her attributes, the distaff [a spindle for spinning wool or flax], bee-hive, pick axe, and spade, pointing to an oxen ploughing, the rising habitations, and a church on a hill at a distance, with a fort for their defence. Motto: Sic fortis etruria crevit [Thus gallant Etruria grew]; with this inscription round the circumference, Sigillum Nov. Camb. Aust. [Seal New South Wales]. While the reverse contained the Royal Arms and the style and titles of the Sovereign, George IV.

(Sources: http://www.nma.gov.au/collections-search/results?search=adv&ref=coll&collname=Third+Great+Seal+of+New+South+Wales+collection; and
1932 'GREAT SEAL OF N.S.W.', The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), 13 August, p. 9, viewed 6 March, 2014, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16889439)...