LEGAL HISTORY High Court appointments up to its jubilee year

By David Ash

The High Court of Australia first sat in October 1903, Sir Adrian Knox one hundred years ago. Below appear clerihews of Steered the court well clear of rocks appointments to the jubilee year, 1953. Like Erskine, perhaps, preferring advocacy As the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed) explains, the He resigned upon becoming a residual legatee. clerihew is a short comic or nonsensical verse, professedly Sir Hayden Erskine Starke biographical, of two couplets differing in length. Its creator To put it bluntly, had bite and bark Edmund Clerihew Bentley has left us with a number, After a while, he sat without wearing a wig including ‘Sir Christopher Wren/Was going to dine with some men./He said, ‘If anybody calls,/Say ‘I’m designing St Paul’s.’’ And so, it is said, without fearing a fig. and ‘The people of Spain think Cervantes/Equal to half-a- Sir Owen Dixon dozen Dantes;/An opinion resented most bitterly/By the Sine qua non people of Italy.’ Nesting dissent, then wresting the ball By jesting Pilate, so besting all. Sir Samuel Griffith Herbert Vere Evatt (also known as Doc) States’ powers early zenith An appointment giving Tories nervous shock Piloting two decades with the vigour of Jessel A busy mind, he divined a remedy Though Isaacs may later have scuttled the vessel. Giving dissent in Chester v Waverley. Sir Edmund Barton, ex-prime minister Sir Edward Aloysius McTiernan Was most restrained for an ex-political creature A record to beat, if one can In each full court case of CLR 1 to 3 A Depression elevation to broaden the mix With Griffith, says one source, he didn’t once disagree. He stood down upon injury in seventy-six. Ex-senator Richard O’Connor Sir John Greig Latham Broke his health with hard labour Politically pre-empted Dixon’s diadem Concurrence with Griffith was not such a likelihood Yet did not begrudge his colleague’s celebrity And he (not Higgins) first knocked back a knighthood. And did not give up his own logical austerity. Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs Sir Dudley Williams (MC and twice MID) Could cut contrariness with an axe Like Sir George Rich joked and knew equity His judgments were certainly not on the run A valued member of a solid crew Take the pages in Coal Vend at first instance, 271. Who heard as much as any of section 92. Higgins, Henry Bournes Sir Willam Flood Webb Each unionist to this day mourns Benched at a time of flow and of ebb Shaw’s ’enry ’iggins heard working class Doolittles Elevated by Evatt after much public service But his namesake preferred to harvest their vittles. Yet in some ways his appointor’s antithesis. Sir Frank Gavan Duffy Sir Wilfred Kelsham Fullagar Came from a family that was Irish, robustly Wielded a kindly scimitar He retired, some say, at eighty-three His analysis of stevedoring But only some say, as he was born on 29 February. Left many a poor tortfeasor gnawing. The Honourable Sir Charles Powers KCMG Sir Frank Kitto (Incidentally, the first appointee without a degree) Sloth’s foe Divided with (or from?) Higgins the Arbitration Court Opts for writing with an elegant view But historians show reserve on what else he wrought. Spelt out in ‘Why write judgments?’, 66 ALJ (1992). Albert Piddington (middle name Bathurst) Taylor, Sir Alan Russell A wit with a penchant for the quixotic burst Quintessentially Sydney intellectual muscle Without ever handing down a decision, he was gone So though under Dixon he was held in esteem Returning years later, to defend Kisch (Egon). Was possibly more at home in the Barwick regime. Sir George Edward Rich These portraits stop in fifty-three Practised in the equitable niche Twenty appointments, one jubilee Of his crisp contributions we may say certainly They’re drawn from a number of sources To the God of Short Judgments he never said ‘peccavi’. The faults, of course, remain the author’s.

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