17 Facts About William Stawell

Sir William Foster Stawell KCMG was a British colonial statesman and a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Australia.

William Stawell was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, studied law at the King's Inns, Dublin, and at Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the Irish bar in 1839.

William Stawell travelled in Europe with his friends Redmond Barry and James Moore.

William Stawell practised law in Ireland until 1842 when he decided to emigrate to Australia.

William Stawell was admitted to the Port Phillip District bar in 1843.

William Stawell engaged extensively in pastoral pursuits, and had sheep stations at Natte Yallock, Victoria, on the banks of the Avoca River, and in the neighbourhood of Lake Wallace, near the South Australian border.

When Charles Perry came to Australia as first bishop of Melbourne, William Stawell helped him to form a constitution for the newly created diocese.

For many years William Stawell enjoyed the leading practice at the local bar, and when the Port Phillip district of New South Wales was separated from the parent colony, and entered upon an independent existence as the Colony of Victoria, William Stawell accepted the position of Attorney-General on 15 July 1851 and became a member of the Executive Council and the Legislative Council.

William Stawell had to establish a police force, frame regulations for the government of the goldfields, appoint magistrates and officials of every grade, and protect life and property against the perceived threat of the hordes of gold rush adventurers who arrived in Victoria, first from the neighbouring colonies, and later from Europe and America.

Rather than export duty on gold, William Stawell supported a miners' licensing system, which was one of the major grievances leading to the Eureka Rebellion in Ballarat in 1854.

William Stawell had very little assistance for some time from any of his colleagues, and until the Executive Council was strengthened by the admission of Captain Andrew Clarke and Hugh Culling Childers, William Stawell was the brains as well as the body of the administration.

William Stawell was indefatigable in the discharge of his duties, and extraordinary stories are told of the long journeys on horseback to visit distant outposts which he would take after being all day long in the law courts or in the council chamber.

William Stawell bore an active part in drafting the Constitution Act which gave to Victoria representative institutions and a responsible ministry, instead of an executive appointed and removable by the governor and a legislature in which one-third of the members were chosen by the Crown.

At the first general election after the new constitution in 1856 William Stawell was returned as one of the Members for Melbourne, and became the attorney-general of the first responsible ministry.

William Stawell left Australia after his 1843 arrival only in 1872, when he paid short visits to the neighbouring colonies and New Zealand, and in 1873, when he returned to Europe on two years' leave of absence.

William Stawell took a very deep interest in the proceedings of the Church of England, and was a member of the synod.

The town of William Stawell, Victoria was named in his honour.