Attorney-General, 1903-1923

Component identifier:

Subseries 15_5_5

Content Summary:

Correspondence, notes, memoranda, receipts, press clippings and other printed material. There are papers on the 1904 Acts Interpretation Bill, appeals arising from the 1909 Industries Preservation Act, preferential voting, Commonwealth treaties, the States' taxing powers relating to federal employees and the Deakin and Lyne v. Webb case relating to the same issue.

Further papers relating to the High Court concern such issues as appointments, arbitration, appeals to the Privy Council, temporary judges and the Privy Council's decision on the 1907 Webb v. Outrim case. There is also a pamphlet featuring an official photograph of the High Court judges, taken in 1906. The principal correspondents are Sir Edmund Barton, Thomas Bavin, Herbert Bryant, Andrew Inglis Clark, George B. Edwards, Sir Samuel Griffith, Justice H.B. Higgins, Richard E. O'Connor, Sir John Quick and Sir Samuel Way.

Correspondence dealing with Sir Josiah Symon's dispute with the High Court Judges, 1904-1905, can be found in Subseries 16.1.

This subseries contains Items 15/3341 - 15/3476.

Immediate source of acquisition:

On 3 December 1965 Ivy Brookes, the eldest daughter of Alfred Deakin, formally presented the Deakin Papers to the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, for permanent preservation in the National Library. After Deakin's death in 1919 his papers remained in the possession of his widow, Pattie, until her death in 1934. They were used extensively by Herbert Brookes, and by Professor Walter Murdoch while he was working on the first biography of Deakin, published in 1923. In 1945 the Deakin Papers were examined by an officer of the National Library and it was agreed that the papers would ultimately be deposited in the Library. In 1948 Professor R.M. Crawford of the University of Melbourne became custodian of the papers on the understanding that either an extensive selection of documents or a biography would be based on them. Subsequently his colleague, Professor J.A. La Nauze, began Deakin's biography and the papers remained in his custody until the work was completed in 1965. From time to time other papers relating to Deakin were added to the original collection by Herbert and Ivy Brookes, Lady Rivett and Sir Thomas and Lady White. Professors Crawford and La Nauze also added letters or copies of Deakin letters that they had acquired from other sources.

Names:

Brookes, Ivy

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