86 Facts About Edmund Barton

1.

Sir Edmund "Toby" Barton was an Australian politician, statesman and judge who served as the first prime minister of Australia, from 1901 to 1903, holding office as the leader of the Protectionist Party.

2.

Edmund Barton resigned to become a founding member of the High Court of Australia, on which he served until his death.

3.

Edmund Barton was a delegate to the constitutional conventions, playing a key role in the drafting of a national constitution, and was one of the lead campaigners for federation in the subsequent referendums.

4.

In late 1900, despite the initial "Hopetoun Blunder", Edmund Barton was commissioned to form a caretaker government as Australia's first prime minister.

5.

Edmund Barton's term began on 1 January 1901, the date on which federation occurred.

6.

Edmund Barton was able to remain as prime minister by forming an alliance with the fledgling Australian Labor Party, which held the balance of power.

7.

The Edmund Barton government established a number of new national institutions, including the Australian Defence Force and the Commonwealth Public Service.

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8.

Edmund Barton left politics in 1903 to become one of the three founding members of the High Court, which his government had created.

9.

Edmund Barton was succeeded as prime minister by Alfred Deakin.

10.

Edmund Barton was born on 18 January 1849 in Glebe, Sydney, New South Wales.

11.

Edmund Barton was the eleventh of twelve children born to Mary Louisa and William Barton.

12.

Edmund Barton had seven sisters and four brothers, including the writer George Burnett Barton.

13.

Edmund Barton's parents were both born in London, England, although his father's family was originally from Devon.

14.

William Edmund Barton worked variously as an accountant, bazaar proprietor, stockbroker, and real estate agent.

15.

Edmund Barton spent his early years in Glebe, but in 1851 the family moved into the inner city, living on Cumberland Street in The Rocks.

16.

Edmund Barton had a relatively comfortable upbringing, although his father faced financial difficulties on a number of occasions.

17.

Edmund Barton's parents were both highly literate, and his mother in particular "provided much of the direction and encouragement for Edmund's impressive academic achievement".

18.

Edmund Barton began his formal education at what is the Fort Street Public School.

19.

Edmund Barton later attended Sydney Grammar School, possibly as one of the first students after the school's opening in 1857.

20.

Edmund Barton was the dux and school captain at Sydney Grammar in 1863 and 1864.

21.

Edmund Barton matriculated at the University of Sydney in 1865, aged 16, and was awarded a special prize by the university senate.

22.

Edmund Barton failed to win one of the three entrance scholarships to the University, owing to "an insufficiency of mathematics".

23.

At university, Edmund Barton specialised in classics but studied English literature, mathematics, physics, and French.

24.

Edmund Barton became fluent in Ancient Greek and Latin, and retained a command of both later in life.

25.

Edmund Barton proceeded to Master of Arts by examination in 1870.

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26.

Edmund Barton was a member of the Sydney University Cricket Club and a founding member of the Sydney Rowing Club.

27.

In 1879, Edmund Barton umpired a cricket match at Sydney Cricket Ground between New South Wales and an English touring side captained by Lord Harris.

28.

In 1876 Edmund Barton stood for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in the poll of the graduates of the University of Sydney, but was beaten by William Charles Windeyer 49 votes to 43.

29.

Edmund Barton was aged only 33, and was the youngest person to have been chosen presiding officer of any Australian legislative chamber.

30.

Edmund Barton was an early supporter of federation, which became a serious political agenda after Henry Parkes' Tenterfield Oration, and was a delegate to the March 1891 National Australasian Convention.

31.

Edmund Barton advocated that not just the lower house but the upper house should be representative and that appeals to the Privy Council should be abolished.

32.

Edmund Barton took part in producing a draft constitution, which was substantially similar to the Constitution of Australia enacted in 1900.

33.

Nevertheless, the protectionists were lukewarm supporters of federation and in June 1891, Edmund Barton resigned from the Council and stood for election to East Sydney and announced that "so long as Protection meant a Ministry of enemies to Federation, they would get no vote from him".

34.

Edmund Barton topped the poll and subsequently voted with Parkes, but refused to take a position in his minority government.

35.

Dibbs formed a Protectionist government in New South Wales, and Edmund Barton agreed to return to the office of Attorney General, with the right of carrying out private practice as a lawyer.

36.

Edmund Barton's agreement was based on Dibbs agreeing to support federal resolutions in the coming parliamentary session.

37.

Edmund Barton introduced the federal resolutions into the House on 22 November 1892, but was unable to get them considered in committee.

38.

In July 1894, Edmund Barton stood for re-election for Randwick, since the electorate of East Sydney had been abolished, and lost.

39.

Edmund Barton did not stand for election in the 1895 election, very possibly because of financial difficulties.

40.

However, he continued to campaign for federation and during the period between January 1893 to February 1897, Edmund Barton addressed nearly 300 meetings in New South Wales, including in the Sydney suburb of Ashfield where he declared that "For the first time in history, we have a nation for a continent and a continent for a nation".

41.

In 1897, Edmund Barton topped the poll of the delegates elected from New South Wales to the Constitutional Convention, which developed a constitution for the proposed federation.

42.

In May 1897, Edmund Barton was appointed for the second time to the Legislative Council on Reid's recommendations to take charge of the federation bill in the Upper House.

43.

In July 1898 Edmund Barton resigned from the Upper House to challenge Reid for the seat of Sydney-King in the 1898 general election, but narrowly lost.

44.

In January 1899 Reid gained significant concessions from the other states and he joined Edmund Barton in campaigning for the second referendum in June 1899, with Edmund Barton campaigning all over the state.

45.

Edmund Barton allegedly refused an offer to become Attorney-General again.

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46.

Edmund Barton resigned from Parliament in February 1900 so that he could travel to London with Alfred Deakin and Charles Kingston to explain the federation bill to the Government of the United Kingdom.

47.

Around the same time on 15 January 1900 Edmund Barton published a 28-page United Australia magazine to disseminate an informative narrative for the propositions of a future Federal Government that he hoped to lead.

48.

The British Government was adamant in its opposition to the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council as incorporated in the draft constitution; eventually, Edmund Barton agreed that constitutional matters would be finalised in the High Court of Australia, but other matters could be appealed to the Privy Council.

49.

Edmund Barton was a Justice of the High Court for 16 years.

50.

Edmund Barton was appointed prime minister on 1 January 1901, the day on which the new federal constitution came into effect.

51.

Edmund Barton had only been commissioned to form a government one week before he became prime minister, due to what became known as the "Hopetoun Blunder".

52.

Edmund Barton was tasked by the Colonial Office with selecting someone to form a caretaker government prior to the first federal election; this individual would be Australia's first prime minister.

53.

Edmund Barton took on the external affairs portfolio himself and conducted official business through the Department of External Affairs, as there was no prime minister's department until 1911.

54.

Edmund Barton instead delivered "an electoral masterstroke" by making White Australia the centrepiece of the government's campaign, thereby attracting many working-class voters concerned about "coloured labour".

55.

Edmund Barton himself was elected unopposed in the Division of Hunter, having previously represented the area in the New South Wales parliament.

56.

However, party discipline was virtually non-existent and Edmund Barton was widely seen as having won a mandate to govern.

57.

Edmund Barton outlined his platform for the first federal election at a speech on 17 January 1901, delivered at the West Maitland Town Hall within his prospective electorate.

58.

Edmund Barton's plans included the establishment of the federal capital, the High Court and the Inter-State Commission, and a "moderately protectionist tariff" in order to raise the revenue to introduce old-age pensions and a uniform postal system.

59.

Edmund Barton promised to introduce universal suffrage for federal elections, build the Trans-Australian Railway, legislate to allow federal intervention in industrial disputes, and ban immigration from Asia and the Pacific Islands.

60.

The winning design was the basis for the current Australian national flag, although Edmund Barton personally favoured the existing Australian Federation Flag that had been popular in New South Wales for many years.

61.

An early piece of legislation of the Edmund Barton government was the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, which put the White Australia policy into law.

62.

The Labour Party required legislation to limit immigration from Asia as part of its agreement to support the government, but Edmund Barton had promised the introduction of the White Australia Policy in his election campaign.

63.

Edmund Barton stated, "The doctrine of the equality of man was never intended to apply to the equality of the Englishman and the Chinaman".

64.

Edmund Barton was a moderate conservative, and advanced liberals in his party disliked his relaxed attitude to political life.

65.

For much of 1902, Edmund Barton was in England for the coronation of King Edward VII, which was postponed from June to August, delaying Edmund Barton's return.

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66.

On 24 September 1903, Edmund Barton resigned as prime minister to become one of the founding justices of the High Court of Australia.

67.

Edmund Barton had suffered from bouts of ill health, including a fainting spell in his office earlier in the year.

68.

Edmund Barton was advised by his doctor to quit active politics.

69.

The appointment of the new judges was made by the governor-general on the advice of cabinet, many of whom had ambitions of their own and encouraged Edmund Barton to accept the post.

70.

Edmund Barton's appointment was largely uncontroversial, given his role in drafting the constitution, experience as a barrister, and acceptance of a puisne judgeship rather than the position of chief justice.

71.

Edmund Barton was sworn in to the High Court on 7 October 1903, along with his close friends Samuel Griffith and Richard Edward O'Connor; Griffith became the inaugural Chief Justice of Australia.

72.

Relations between the government and the court became so strained that the judges contemplated refusing to hear cases, and Edmund Barton seriously considered resigning.

73.

Edmund Barton did not dissent from Griffith in the first eight years of the court's existence.

74.

Edmund Barton was acting chief justice for nine months in 1913, while Griffith was overseas.

75.

Edmund Barton resigned from the court after a month, despite Barton's attempts to convince him to stay.

76.

Edmund Barton was angered by the Privy Council's intervention, having always believed the High Court should be the final court of appeal.

77.

Edmund Barton joined with Griffith and O'Connor in the majority opinion in R v Barger, "the High Court's most decisive intervention to date in thwarting social reforms passed by the Commonwealth parliament".

78.

Edmund Barton expressed a "heavy sorrow" at the court's decision and Isaacs was highly critical.

79.

Edmund Barton died on 7 January 1920 from heart failure at the Hydro Majestic Hotel, Medlow Bath, New South Wales.

80.

Edmund Barton was interred in South Head General Cemetery in the Sydney suburb of Vaucluse.

81.

Edmund Barton was survived by his wife and six children:.

82.

Edmund Barton refused knighthoods in 1887,1891 and 1899, but agreed to be appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George in the 1902 Coronation Honours list published on 26 June 1902, and was invested by King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace on 8 August 1902.

83.

Edmund Barton received the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh during a visit to that city on 26 July 1902.

84.

In 1905, the Japanese government conferred the Grand Cordon, Order of the Rising Sun, and Edmund Barton was granted permission to retain and wear the insignia.

85.

In 1951 and again in 1969, Edmund Barton was honoured on postage stamps bearing his portrait issued by Australia Post.

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86.

The Edmund Barton Building is a government office building in that suburb.