| SCOPE AND CONTENT: | The subseries consists of the central registry of administrative and operational files used by the Department of Attorney General from the department’s creation in 1897 until 1917, including records pertaining to justice matters that predate 1897.
The subseries includes files pertaining to ordinances, legislation, cases, and subjects regarding:
- Administration of courts in Alberta, including schedules of court sittings, boundaries of judicial districts, construction and maintenance of courthouses, calendars of sentences, and appointments of clerks, magistrates, sheriffs, constables, crown prosecutors, and other officials;
- Specific criminal and civil matters, including files pertaining to inquests, estates, fires, murders, thefts, outbreaks of disease, child welfare, municipal incorporations, bigamy, garnishee summons, requests for compensation, appeals to the Supreme Court of Canada made by the Government of Alberta regarding lower court decisions, public inquiries, and various complaints;
- Ordinances, acts or legislation in effect during this period, including the federal Northwest Territories Act and territorial and provincial ordinances and acts pertaining to: local improvement districts; municipalities; prairie fires; villages; succession duty; hail insurance; schools; school assessment; magistrates; marriage; public health; steam boilers; fences; public works; masters and servants; auctioneers, hawkers and peddlers; liquor licenses; legal profession; medical profession; constables; game; noxious weeds; insane persons; stray animals; companies; foreign companies; vital statistics; remission of certain penalties; dairymen; municipal telephones; pound districts; cemeteries; mechanics liens; fisheries; brands; insurance; benevolent societies; the Lord’s Day; herds; workman’s compensation; seed grain; drainage; elections; railways; theatres and motion pictures; congregations holding; early closing; controverted municipal elections; rural municipalities, liquor, and medical professions;
- Departmental matters, such as the purchase of law books, expenses, estimates, suggested legislation, appointments of agents of the Attorney General, applications for employment, requisitions for postage stamps, salaries, legal forms, telephone and telegraph accounts, and publication and revision of Alberta Statutes;
- Policing matters, including the Criminal Code of Canada, reports of committals, extraditions, disposition of prisoners, detectives, transportation orders, jails, Provincial Reformatory accounts, returns of cases, Royal Northwest Mounted Police and the origins of the Alberta Provincial Police;
- Land titles and land title offices in Calgary and Edmonton;
- Registrations and registration districts;
- Other government departments, such as Agriculture, Public Works, Provincial Secretary, Education, Government Printer, the Office of Public Administration and Official Guardian; Provincial Auditor; Government Telephones; and the Public Utilities Commission;
- Other subjects, including Government House, the inauguration of the Province of Alberta, the Lieutenant Governor, the provincial university, provincial crest, corporate taxation, immigration, motor vehicles, Industrial School, the Alberta Great Waterways Railway, and women’s interests.
The subseries also includes a register of letters received by the Attorney General’s Department (1911-1913).
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