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BAKER, Sir Richard Chaffey and family PRG 38 Series List ______

Richard Chaffey Baker (1841 - 1911) was born at North on 22 June 1841, the eldest son of John Baker and his wife Isabella. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in June 1864 after which he returned home to set up in practice with Charles Fenn. In 1873 he entered into partnership with Dr William Barlow. In April 1868 Baker became the first South Australian-born member of the colonial legislature. Baker then became Attorney-General in J. Hart's ministry of 1870-71, and the first locally born minister of the Crown. He resigned from cabinet to manage his ailing father's affairs, which consisted of extensive pastoral and other interests. In 1873 he visited England and the Continent, representing at the Vienna International Exhibition in 1873. Upon his return early in 1875, he was offered and declined a place in the Blyth ministry. At the general election that year he failed to regain his former seat, but in 1877 he became a member of the Legislative Council.

In 1885 he won the Southern seat which he represented without interruption until the formation of the Australian Commonwealth. In 1885-86 he visited England to negotiate a postal union between Great Britain and the Australian colonies and in recognition of the success of this important mission he was appointed C.M.G. in 1886. During the visit he also acted as Commissioner for South Australia at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition.

In May 1891 Baker formed the National Defence League, but when he succeeded Sir as president at the Upper House in December 1893, he resigned from the National Defence League, on the grounds that the occupant of such a position should sever all connections with a political party. He was appointed K.C.M.G. in 1895.

Baker was a member of the Federal conventions of 1891 and 1897-98 and wrote a number of pamphlets on Federation.

He resigned the presidency of the Legislative Council in 1901 to stand successfully for the Senate in the first Commonwealth Parliament and was elected first president of the Senate. In 1903 he represented the Commonwealth at the Delhi Durbar when King Edward VII was proclaimed emperor of India. In 1904 he was re-elected president of the Senate, but retired from political life in 1906 because of ill health.

So much of Baker's time was devoted to politics that his work at the Bar was necessarily restricted, and his appointment as a Q.C. in July 1900 did not gain unanimous approval from the legal profession. Through his father's estate, and as chairman of the Queensland Investment and Land Mortgage Co., he had extensive connections with the pastoral industry and was also a director of Elder Smith & Co. Ltd., the colony's largest woolbrokers. He was involved in the development of mining in South Australia, particularly copper in northern Yorke Peninsula; in 1890 he had been elected to the Board of the Wallaroo and Moonta Mining and Smelting Co. He also held interests in various Broken Hill mining companies. For thirteen years at different periods he was chairman of the Adelaide Club.

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As chairman of Jockey Club in 1888-1909, Baker played a leading part in regulating horse-racing and it was mainly through his efforts that Parliament legalized the use of the totalizator machine on race-courses. He was also president of the Royal Agricultural Society, a member of the board of the Botanic Garden, a trustee of the Savings Bank, and a staunch Anglican.

Baker died at Norton Summit, on 18 March 1911, and was buried in North Road cemetery Predeceased by his wife Katherine Edith, nee Colley, whom he had married at Glenelg on 23 December 1865, he was survived by a daughter and two sons.

[From the 'Australian Dictionary of Biography' Volume 7, pp 152-154.] ______

Scrapbooks, containing newspaper cuttings, leaflets, pamphlets and 1 correspondence relating to various subjects. See special list for details.

Photographs from a family photograph album, and including 2 Lord Tennyson and his family, and photographs taken at Cambridge. c.1890-1900. 15 items.

Illuminated address. 3 1876. 1.5cm. [Address to Mrs Isabella Baker and her daughters Elizabeth Anstice (‘Bessie’) and Isabella on their leaving for England in 1876. Mrs Baker was the widow of John Baker who died at ‘Morialta’, Norton Summit, in 1872. The address was executed by R.E. Minchin and includes two watercolour vignettes of St. John’s Church, Morialta (dedicated 1873) and the schoolhouse. It is signed by the Rev. Alfred Honner and the churchwardens on behalf of the parishioners, who are named in the address.]

Miscellaneous documents 4 1881-1917. 0.5 cm (4 items). Four loose documents found in the album (series 2): 1. invoice to Messrs A. Wyly & Co, Beltana Pastoral Co, 15 April 1881, for the hire of 8 camels and 2 Afghan cameleers plus rations; 2. notice from the South Australian Railways, 9 August 1884, advising of a special sheep train from Adelaide to Burra; 3. a hand written recipe for 'Mother Seigals syrup' appears to have been signed by Dr Treverton); and 4. a list of household expenses over March to April 1917.

Note: A catalogue of the Elizabeth Anstice Baker papers held at the Dominican Historical Centre, Oxford is included at the end of the special list. Bessie Baker was the daughter of John Baker, of Morialta and sister of Sir Richard Chaffey Baker.

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