Social histories of how people lived in the early years of the Australian colonies have generally underestimated the significance of the magistracy. This dissertation undertakes a detailed legal examination of a sample of the cases brought before the magistrates of the Port Phillip District, as Victoria was then known, in the 1830s and 1840s. Extant magisterial records demonstrate the crucial\ud
importance of these 'gentlemen', so styled, in enforcing collective norms of behaviour, stabilising an otherwise disorderly population in raw conditions, and thereby providing a bridge between English and colonial social structures