Assessment Books 1845 - 1950
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Accessing Building Application Records | Assessment Books 1845 - 1950 | Citations for Archival Records | Demolition Photographs 1900 - 1949 | Records of Councils Absorbed by Sydney City Council | Sydney Reference Collection
The Assessment Books are among the records most heavily used by researchers. They were compiled by the Council as a record of basic information about each property in the city which was liable to pay rates (local government property tax). The information was used to assess the values of properties so that the appropriate amount of rates could be levied, and to record the person in effective possession of the property and/or liable to pay the rates.
The Assessment Books are sometimes mistakenly referred to as Rate Books. The Rate Books record far less information, usually only the name of the ratepayer and the details of rates paid. Other Councils often combined the two functions in the one book, but Sydney City Council kept them separately.
Administrative History
The Sydney City Incorporation Act 1842 which created Sydney City Council permitted the Council to levy a rate of up to one shilling in the pound on the annual value of a building. Some buildings were exempt. The revenue was then used to provide municipal services such as street repairs, rubbish removal and so on.
In order to determine the amount of rates to be levied, Council had to assess the annual value of each building or property within its boundaries. As values did not usually increase by significant amounts every year, assessments usually were carried out every three to five years - although in some cases the gaps are even longer.
Council contracted the task of recording assessment data to Assessors, who walked the streets of the City collecting the required information. This included:
- the name of the owner
- the name of the ratepayer
- the type of construction materials used
- the number of rooms (and number of levels)
- the category of the building and
- assessed annual value of the building.
The category of building identifies structures only by general categories such as “house”, “cottage’, “hotel”, “shop”, “counting-house” “factory” and does not usually give any more specific or detailed description of the use to which the premises were being put. The names of hotels are sometimes given.
The names of every occupant or lodger were not required for the purposes of rates assessments, so were not collected. Some Assessors seemed to have collected more information about properties than others. This is noticeable in the “remarks” column, which some Assessors used to comment on the general state of houses, whereas in other years it is left mostly blank.
The 1842 Act compelled the Council to levy rates on the annual value of buildings, usually called Improved Capital Value (ICV). From 1909 the Council began to compile assessments based on land value - Unimproved Capital Value (UCV) - but also continued to assess gross and net annual value.
The City Council carried out its own valuations until 1948, when the NSW State Government passed legislation declaring that the Valuer-General's Department was to conduct all valuations.
Who Were the Ratepayers?
Until the passing of the Sydney Corporation Act 1879, the ratepayer listed in the Assessment Books was normally the occupant or tenant of the building who paid the rent. This changed in 1879, for reasons relating to eligibility for voting in Council elections.
The 1879 Act specified that whoever paid the rates got the vote in Council elections. This had the effect of encouraging building owners (landlords) to pay the rates. Critics of the Act at the time argued that owners would force their tenants to default, pay the rates themselves, and pass the costs back to the tenants as increased rent. Possession of a rates receipt then enabled an owner to be enrolled to vote in Council elections.
The 1879 Act also introduced cumulative voting, which meant ratepayers received extra votes according to the value of their property. This, combined with plural voting, (allowing a ratepayer to vote in every ward where he held property) introduced by the Sydney Corporation Act 1857, gave a new incentive to building-owners to pay the rates on their properties themselves, especially for owners of property keen to have particular Aldermen on Council.
Some large landlords paid the rates on all their properties and paid them, not in the names of their real tenants, but dummy tenants who were then registered as electors. This was not the case for every owner of property in Sydney, and in most cases the ratepayer listed is probably the occupant. However, there is no easy way to determine how common these cases would be.
The book Sydney's Elections - a brief electoral history of SydneyCity Council 1842-1992 by Hilary Golder (Sydney City Council 1995) provides a detailed explanation and discussion of these issues. This is available as a download from the Electoral History page.
Exemptions From Paying Rates
The Sydney Incorporation Act 1842 (s75) exempted certain buildings from paying rates. These were:
- buildings owned or hired by the Government and used for public purposes
- hospitals, benevolent asylums and buildings used exclusively for charitable purposes
- churches chapels and other places of worship, and
- schools receiving Government aid or otherwise of a public character.
Because these buildings could not be assessed for rates less information about them was recorded by the Assessors.
Making Use of the Assessment Books
Each Assessment Book refers to one ward of the City only, and most refer to one year only.
Some volumes contain supplementary assessments, updating information to show changes made in the following years prior to the next assessment. Where a supplementary assessment has been carried out, there will be a note in the Remarks column with a reference to a later assessment number. The supplementary assessments are found at the end of the volume. They usually record changes in ownership, major alterations or demolition of a building. In some cases, they will show that the property is vacant land. Supplementary assessment have not been transcribed into the online database so cannot be keyword searched.
For each year an assessment was carried out, there is a book for each ward. Within each book, assessments are arranged street by street, then building by building within each street. They are not arranged alphabetically by the names of owners or ratepayers, nor are the streets listed in alphabetical order. A small number of the assessment book volumes have not survived.
Wards were the electoral areas into which the City was divided. Wards were usually named after colonial Governors (such as Macquarie and Gipps) or sometimes after the areas they covered (Camperdown for example). Ward boundaries changed from time to time, new wards were created and old ones ceased to exist, in response to electoral considerations and changes to the boundaries of the Council area as a whole. A set of maps showing boundaries of the City and Wards since 1842 is available online in the Historical Atlas. Click here to go to the Atlas.
The advent of the Assessment Books web-based on-line resource from mid 2011will allow simple and advanced keyword searching and radically improve accessibility of these records. We expect this will facilitate their use for family history and for more general historical studies of the City of Sydney. Click here to go to the Assessment Books online catalogue.
Because assessments were carried out only every three to five years on average, there will probably not be one for exactly the date you wish to research. In this case, it is best to start at the next assessment, and work backwards. This also helps to clarify and overcome problems with street number changes. Street number changes are discussed below.
Information in the Assessment Books
The assessment books usually contain the following information:
- Number of assessment book: a number given to each property. A property often did not receive the same number in successive assessments. In most books the numbers begin with "1" but for a few years the City used a single sequence of numbers across all books created for a single assessment.
- Situation: The term used for street name - usually written vertically on the left-hand side of the page.
- Street number: not generally in use in the City before the mid 1870s. Books created before then will often not have street (property) numbers. Where present they are usually recorded for one side of the street at a time. All of the odd numbers will be together, and all of the even numbers will be together. See below for a discussion on the problems associated with street number changes.
- House name: this information was not recorded in any systematic way. It seems to have depended very much on the assessor. House names are more likely to be noted in the later assessment books.
- Name of ratepayer: until 1879 rates were usually paid by whoever was responsible for paying the rent on a property. After 1879, the ratepayer could be the owner or the tenant. Surnames are sometimes spelt differently in different assessments.
- Name of owner: when the names of owners or ratepayers change the original entry is often crossed out and the new details written in.
- Description of property: this is usually limited to "house", "cottage", "hotel", "shop", or "factory". The Sydney Incorporation Act 1842 specified the categories of buildings as "house, warehouse, counting house or shop". The limitations of these descriptions can be frustrating, especially if one suspects that a property may have had a use that is not recorded, for example as a lodging-house.
- Building materials: this is a short description of the materials used in the house and the roof, such as stone, brick or wood for the house, and slate, iron or shingles for the roof.
- Number of storeys and number of rooms: this can change from one assessment book to the next. For example, in successive years the same property can be described as having 2 floors, then 3 floors, then 2 floors again. It is possible that some assessors counted basements and attics as floors and rooms, while others did not. In some cases the changes will reflect actual construction work, and this could be reflected in a significant change in the value of the property.
- Annual value: expressed in pounds. The assessed value of the property, used to set the rates payable by the owner or occupier.
- Comments: this field contains a wide variety of remarks. Some assessors comment on the dilapidated state of the property or note that there is a kitchen or stables at the back. Sometimes they note when a property is pulled down.
Problem Solving
1. What if I Cannot Find the Street I am Looking For?
Was the area under Sydney City Council control at the time you are researching, and are you looking at the correct ward for that year? (Check the ward boundary maps).
Did the street exist in the year you are researching, or has the name of the street changed? Street names were changed for a variety of reasons including elimination of duplicate street names. An on-line guide to City of Sydney streets is available. A check of the Sands Directory for the same year can also help.
Has the street number of the property changed? Street renumbering happened frequently in the 19th century while the final shape of streets was still being formed. To overcome this problem you should go to an assessment for a later date and work backwards towards the date on which your research is focussed. The Assessment Books do not usually reflect changes by crossing out the old number and replacing it with the new one. If there are cross-streets shown these can be a help. If you know the position of the property you are searching for in relation to a cross street, you should be able to find the same property again even if the street number has changed. You should also note the names of owners and occupants in neighbouring houses, as some of the names remain fairly constant. Recognising these patterns will usually help you to pinpoint a particular property where street numbers have changed.
2. What if I Cannot Find the Person I am Looking For?
The occupants of buildings were not always the ratepayers, and were therefore not recorded in the Assessment Books. Boarders, lodgers and sub-tenants, and family members other than the head of the family noted as the owner or occupier, were not normally recorded in the assessments. If people moved in and out of a property between assessments they will not be recorded. Spelling of names in the assessment books can sometimes be erratic.
Gaps in the record such as these can sometimes be overcome by checking through Sand's Sydney Directories (1858 to 1933) which are available at the Archives, and many major public libraries in Australia, on microfiche.
Other Records
This list shows records available at the Archives, which can be used to supplement information from the Assessment Books, or to cover the years after 1948.
Sand's Sydney Directories (1858-1933) is useful, although it only lists one name per property, probably the name of the occupant
Dove's Plans of Sydney (1880) and the Fire Insurance Plans, (1916-1940s), show the City area block by block, including street numbers, and the names of buildings and businesses. These are available online in the Historical Atlas.
CRS 31, Valuation Lists, (1949-1969), record name and address of the owner/s only, changes in ownership, house names, dimensions of the property, and sale prices. These were compiled by the Valuer-General's Department.
CRS 52, Valuation Books, (1974+), record name and address of owners only, changes in ownership, sale prices, and dimensions of property.
The surviving Rate and Valuation records for the former (pre 1949) municipalities of Alexandria, Camperdown, Darlington, Erskineville, Glebe, Macdonaldtown, Newtown, Redfern, Paddington, and Waterloo are also available. These are catalogued in Archives Investigator. Summary lists are also available.
