On the 28th, May 1869, the committee of the Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute collectively signed a Promissory note (a joint and several) to the London Chartered Bank of Australia, for the total sum of six thousand five hundred pounds.

This amount was for the balance outstanding for the building of the four story addition to the original Mechanics’ Institute. It faced Sturt street and had a statue of Minerva on the top.

Each member who signed the promissory note was personally responsible for the ‘joint and several’ of the total outstanding.

19-01-1869 letter to N.H.Embling Esq., M.D.      Letter directed by the Committee informing you the following resolution passed at the meeting on Friday evening; “that all Members of the Committee declining to sign the Promissory Note at the Bank be informed that they will be expected to resign with a view of having others appointed who will share the responsibility”.

The secretary, Mr. Batten, conducted an Art Union on behalf of the members, and the debt was paid in full before the Promissory note became due.

Here is a most interesting story about this document.

From the BMI Archives –

THE INCREDIBLE STORY OF THE ‘JOINT AND SEVERAL’

At the 1951 BMI Committee annual meeting, attention was drawn to a promissory note signed in 1869 by seventeen Committee members that held them “jointly and severally” responsible for the bank loan of 6,500 Pounds Sterling, enabling the erection of a building on the Institute’s Sturt Street site.  The document hung on the wall in the library corridor until it went missing and some years later was rediscovered when a stamp dealer in NSW lodged a newspaper advertisement seeking information about an old document he had found.  A BMI member saw the advertisement and for a moderate sum the precious item was returned to the care of the Institute.

1.  The quote in paragraph.1 is from the 1951 BMI Annual Report.

2.  NOTE:  The original document is in the Main Safe (Library Desk).