colony in the 1830s was one of police districts with a professional paid police magistrate as the local administrator. Police district boundaries as drawn by Governor Gipps in 1840 varied from the county boundaries, and counties and parishes survived only in the land survey as a means of describing allotments in deeds and, for much of the century, also as statistical areas for collecting population and agricultural data. Braidwood became the centre of the "Braidwood Police District". Convictism In the official 1828 census, of the 18 landholders listed in the County of St Vincent only five had their proprietor in residence. The official population of the area in that year was about 90, of whom fifty percent were convicts serving their sentence, eleven percent were ex convicts and seven percent had tickets of leave. A settler could apply for 8 convict servants for every 640 acres and an extra convict for each additional 160 acres. The convicts were an essential part of the labour force, particularly in the newly opened and remote areas. The rapid spread of settlement raised concerns, especially back in London, of the colonial administration's ability to control and service the broad and sparsely populated area. NSW in the 1820s and 30s was still primarily a penal colony. The British Government was determined that it should be seen as a place of punishment and so act as a deterrent against crime, and frequent directives to the NSW Governor attempted to make the administration in the colony more severe and effective. Transportation itself was the primary punishment, but a series of secondary punishments were thought to be necessary to control the large convict population in a "jail without walls". At the same time convicts also had rights under the law. No settler was supposed to punish his own assigned men. Minor offences were to be brought before a bench of one or two magistrates. In the 1820s magistrates were local settlers and figures of authority. Before 1832 a magistrate hearing cases by himself could order a maximum of 150 lashes. After 1832 this was reduced to a maximum of 50 lashes. More serious cases were taken before the quarter session of a Supreme Court at Bungonia or Berrima. The police district evolved as the form of local government in the 1830s, superseding the parish and country model. Need for local court and lockup Prior to the town of