Edmund Barton - the man
Edmund Barton was born in Glebe Sydney in 1849 to William and Mary Louise (née Whydah). A clever boy with a love of literature, music and art, Barton was educated at Fort Street Model School and Sydney Grammar School.
It was at Sydney Grammar that Barton first met Richard O’Connor. The lives of Barton and O’Connor would run parallel courses; each dedicated to the cause of Federation, both members of Australia’s first Federal Cabinet, and, ultimately, both would sit on the nation’s first High Court.
At the Athenaeum Club in the early 1880s Barton met and conversed with the Tasmanian Attorney-General, Andrew Inglis Clark, a passionate spokesman for an American model of Federation. It was not, however, until Barton read reports in the press of the Tenterfield address Henry Parkes gave to a meeting in the Sydney Town Hall that he gave his full and unconditional commitment to Federation.
In March 1891 Barton proposed his blueprint for Federation at the National
Australasian Convention. He argued that an elected senate composed of State
representatives would effectively balance the powers between the States
and a Federal government. Barton also advocated an autonomous Australian
legal system, and the necessary abolition of the right of appeal to the
British Privy Council. Among others, the Victorian politician Alfred Deakin
was impressed by Barton’s speech.
On the 1st of March 1901 Parliament was opened by the Duke of York, later to be crowned George V. The first Cabinet consisted of Edmund Barton as Prime Minister and Minister for External Affairs, Alfred Deakin Attorney General, George Turner as Treasurer, James Dickson as Minister for Defence, Charles Kingston as Minister for Trade and Customs, John Forrest as Post-Master General, and William Lyne as Minister of Home Affairs. As there were only seven paid positions within the Cabinet, Richard O'Connor was appointed an unpaid honorary member. Edmund Barton was Prime Minister for a little over two and a half years, yet this brief period was to shape the Commonwealth for many years to come.
Although the High Court had been established under the Constitution, the appointment of the first Bench could not take place until the passing of the Judiciary Act two years later. In 1903 the three High Court Judges, Edmund Barton, Richard O’Connor and Chief Justice Samuel Griffith were sworn in. In the early days of the High Court of Australia, the judges were in the curious position of interpreting the Constitution that all three had helped to write. This unique situation would persist until 1906 when the High Court bench was increased to five with the appointments of Henry Bournes Higgins and Sir Isaac Isaacs.