Worshipful Masters Piddington, Albert Bathurst (1862-1945) A digital text sponsored by New South Wales Centenary of Federation Committee University of Sydney Library Sydney 2000 http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/fed © University of Sydney Library. The texts and images are not to be used for commercial purposes without permission Source Text: Prepared from the print edition published by Angus & Robertson Limited, Sydney 1929 All quotation marks retained as data All unambiguous end-of-line hyphens have been removed, and the trailing part of a word has been joined to the preceding line. First Published: 1929 Languages: French Hindi German Italian Latin Greek, Classical A828.91/P/2/1 Australian Etexts biographies 1910-1939 prose nonfiction federation 2001 Creagh Cole Coordinator Final Checking and Parsing Worshipful Masters by (Mr Justice Piddington) “Gentlemen, Pray Silence! The Worshipful Master Craves the Honour of Taking Wine With You.”— Toastmaster's formula at an ancient Guild's Dinner in London. 39 Castlereagh Street, Sydney Australia: Angus & Robertson Limited 1929 To the Reader The title suggests that here you are invited to meet in surroundings of hospitality certain notable exemplars, some of life, some of mirth, some of learning, but all of human friendliness and service in their day. These worshipful masters crave the honour of taking wine with you. A.B.P. Contents CHARLES BADHAM .. .. .. .. 1 “COONAMBLE” TAYLOR .. .. .. .. 15 A TRIO IN DENMAN .. .. .. .. 36 GEORGE REID .. .. .. .. .. 53 “STORMS” PIDDINGTON .. .. .. .. 67 DADDY HALLEWELL .. .. .. .. 83 BADHAM II .. .. .. .. .. 101 SOME MASTERS IN REID'S PARLIAMENT .. .. 121 J. F. CASTLE .. .. .. .. .. /CELL> 142 BAPU GANDHI .. .. .. .. .. .. 160 SIR JULIAN SALOMONS .. .. .. .. 200 SOME ASPIRANTS IN ENGLISH .. .. .. 213 SIR SAMUEL GRIFFITH .. .. .. .. 229 SOME PUPIL TEACHERS .. .. .. .. 248 GRANDMA BUSBY .. .. .. .. .. 266 THOMAS O'REILLY .. .. .. .. 284 Illustrations 4 DR BADHAM .. .. .. .. .. 36 MR JUSTICE EDMUNDS .. .. .. .. 52 WILFRID BLACKET, K.C. .. .. .. 68 “STORMS” PIDDINGTON .. .. .. .. 100 PROFESSOR BUTLER .. .. .. .. 132 JULIA LADY PARKES WITH SIR HENRY PARKES 148 THE CASTLE FAMILY .. .. .. .. 164 BAPU GANDHI .. .. .. .. .. 198 SIR JULIAN SALOMONS, K.C. .. .. .. 260 FRANK LEVERRIER, K.C. .. .. .. 276 GRANDMA BUSBY .. .. .. .. 292 CANON O'REILLY .. .. .. .. Worshipful Masters Chapter I Charles Badham MY first public dinner was a banquet given to Dr Badham on his seventieth birthday in the vestibule of the Town Hall. The toast of the guest was given by William Bede Dalley, “whose friendship,” said Badham, “has sweetened and aromatized my life here from beginning to end.” Dalley belonged to a generation that was full of men who, without university training, went far through liveliness of intellect, fondness for culture, and an ambition to excel in literary skill. Perhaps the man who best of all deserves the name of genius in these regards was Daniel Henry Deniehy, a young Irishman who in his earliest days stood side by side with Parkes and Wentworth in the demand for self-government for the colony. Deniehy's literary remains, affectionately gathered together by Miss Ironsides, to whom he had been at one time engaged, disclose a wide range of reading. His masterpiece “How I became Attorney-General of New Barataria” is a very brilliant political satire which won Bulwer Lytton's admiration, and, if the personages had been known to European instead of to Sydney politics, would have become a classic of the language. The very title is a brilliant conception. A famous episode in Don Quixote is that in which a practical joke is played on the peasant Sancho Panza, who is duped into believing that the King has made him Governor of an island called Barataria. In reality all the honour and luxury by which the jokers surround him is staged in an obscure part of Spain, and the fun of the story is in the promotion of such a misfit to a station where he proceeds to make of government a topsy-turvy imitation of the legitimate thing. Deniehy's suggestion that New South Wales had been made a New Barataria where an ignoramus could be set to rule was a fine stroke of literary suggestion with which to punish the Government that had made the appointment Deniehy wished to ridicule. Dalley figures in the sketch as “Little Tip Top,” a term calling up the vivacity and the dressiness of Dalley, always faultlessly turned out, always with a flower in his buttonhole, and generally with a neatly rolled umbrella. According to Deniehy's biting story Little Tip Top had a very keen nose for the aroma that surrounds “a good English family.” What happened was that a certain Holyoake Bayley, an obscure barrister who had come out to the colony, was suddenly made Attorney- General, and Deniehy describes Dalley's obsequious but gay insistence on the surprised visitor's acceptance of the post. Dalley calls on him in his empty chambers, shuts the door, peers into the cupboards, and then sits down on a chair with his arms folded across the back, as cavalry officers do. A shrewd thrust is given here when the narrator of the story (the Attorney-General speaking to his English cronies in a London club after his return) condescendingly comments on Tip Top's aptitude in picking up the ways of gentlemen. Dalley, however hurt at the time, was (as J. A. Froude, who met him in Sydney, well said of him) “a man at all points,” and he not only forgave Deniehy but befriended him in the misfortunes brought on by sociability carried too far. In their last conversation, when Deniehy was dragging about the streets of Bathurst, the fallen star of democratic oratory quoted bitterly:— The dog that's lame is much to blame, He is not fit to live.* Deniehy's statue, forgotten among the absurd abominations that deface the Lands Office, happens to possess a singular quality of realism. The shrinking slender figure, the bent shoulders, and the pathetic droop of the head as if overladen with thought and sorrow, accord well with all one hears of this bright meteor so soon extinguished. Dalley's statue, too, in Hyde Park, has a truth and character of its own. The confidence and bright gaiety of pose, the persuasive smile, and the debonair gesture belong to Dalley in his best days. It was my misfortune to see him only twice—once when (as I have said) he proposed Badham's health on his seventieth birthday, and was visibly weighed down by ill- health, and again at Badham's funeral, when his sensitive face was refined into a more engaging humanity than that of the dashing man-about-town of his earlier photographs. His latest photograph shows him as I saw him then, the consciousness of approaching fate seeming to prompt the thought in him as in Keats that I must die Like a sick eagle looking on the sky. Photograph facing p.4. Dr Badham Dalley's pursuit of pleasure was angrily spoken of by the late Judge Windeyer, but fits of religious contrition alternated to keep his nature from any lasting contamination of the soul. He must have been a man of the most perfect kindliness, for I have never heard of a word or act that spelt ill-will to any human being. A chemist told me that, when he was a youngster at Manly, Dalley wanted some one to poison a favourite Newfoundland which had to be destroyed out of mercy. Dalley could not give the dose himself, but came out on to the lawn, asked the young man if it would be painless and certain, and then, thanking him with a break in his voice, turned away, leaving a five-pound note in his hand. Even his criticism was without bitterness. When an opponent to his candidature in East Sydney tried to rouse the feelings of the sectarians, Dalley simply quoted the Scotch phrase about “ridin' on the riggin' (i.e. the ridge cap) of the Kirk” and went on to ridicule “this species of ecclesiastical equestrianism.” And when he defended the Sudan contingent sent on his initiative in 1885, he denounced “the parochial circumscription of our politics” without calling his opponents traitors to the Empire. The Badham Banquet was a great night for a youngster. The tickets cost thirty-five shillings, and I have never yet been able to remember how I collected such a sum of money in those days. There were twenty-two courses, and, with Dalley in the confidence of the caterers, the wines came on in orthodox order and profusion. I ate every course, and afterwards walked home to St Paul's College, treading (but treading firmly) on air all the way. At the end of the banquet four of us were left. We elected Edmund Barton to the chair (on which he stood, not sat). We toasted every official of the university down to the Yeoman Bedell—Joe Burrows. Badham's speech was unforgettable. At the age of seventy his innate talent for acting (which Cardinal Newman admired) was still vigorous. Having compared the praise which he had received to a garment offered him, he said:— Now, what am I to do with all this praise? Am I to falter and simper, and throw myself into absurd postures of ill-timed modesty, and throw aside the royal robe which you have offered me? No, I will put on the royal robe; I will stand out in the full majesty of self-assertion, so that not a spangle of it or a fold of it shall be hidden by the wearer. What is the first thing I am to do, now that I am endued with this royalty? At this point he picked up a long carving-knife from the table and held it out while he drew himself up in a kingly fashion, so that he seemed to expand before our eyes, and went on:— The first thing I do is to extend the sceptre of my septuagenarian clemency over all those fools and impostors that have attacked me since I came to these shores.