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  • Publication Date: March 11, 2019
  • EAN: 9781862875036
  • 6" x 8⅝"
Filed Under: Lawyers & Judges

Lives of Australian Chief Justices Set

$600.00

Product Description

This set comprises the seventeen volumes in the Lives of the Australian Chief Justices series, covering all six States of Australia and is available for the special price of $600.00. You may order the whole set by clicking on Add to Trolley.

Most Individual volumes may be purchased at the rrp of $49.50, however for one or two Lives, the rrp is $59.95 or $64.95. Any individual volume may be ordered by clicking on the name of the Judge below.

Special prices for each State Set are setout below. All State Sets may be ordered by email, please click on the click here:

New South Wales $210.00 – to order NSW State Set, click hereTasmania $130.00 – to order Tasmanian State Set, click hereVictoria $120.00 – to order Victorian State Set, click hereWestern Australia $130.00 – to order Western Australian State Set, click hereQueensland $ 90.00 – to order Queensland State Set, click here

New South Wales – State Set – $210.00

Sir Francis Forbes: First Chief Justice of New South Wales, 1823-1837
Sir James Dowling: Second Chief Justice of New South Wales, 1837-1844
Sir Alfred Stephen: Third Chief Justice of New South Wales, 1844-1873
Sir James Martin: Premier 1863-1865, 1866-1868, 1870-1872 Fourth Chief Justice of New South Wales, 1873-1886
Sir Frederick Darley: Sixth Chief Justice of New South Wales, 1886-1910

Tasmania – State Set – $130.00

Sir John Pedder: First Chief Justice of Tasmania, 1824-1854
Sir Valentine Fleming: Second Chief Justice of Tasmania 1854-1869, Acting Chief Justice 1872-1874
Sir Francis Villeneuve Smith: Third Chief Justice of Tasmania 1870-1885

Victoria – State Set – $120.00

Sir William a’Beckett: First Chief Justice of Victoria, 1852-1857
Sir William Stawell: Second Chief Justice of Victoria, 1857-1886
George Higinbotham: Third Chief Justice of Victoria, 1886-1892

Western Australia – State Set – $130.00

Sir Archibald Burt: First Chief Justice of Western Australia, 1861-1879
Sir Henry Wrenfordsley: Second Chief Justice of Western Australia, 1880-1883 (and Acting Chief Justice 1890-1891)
Sir Alexander Onslow: Third Chief Justice of Western Australia, 1883-1901

South Australia

Sir Charles Cooper: First Chief Justice of South Australia, 1856-1861

Queensland – State Set – $90.00

Sir James Cockle: First Chief Justice of Queensland, 1863-1879
Sir Charles Lilley: Premier 1868-1870 and Second Chief Justice of Queensland, 1879-1893

Judicial biography and colonial legal history roll together in this meticulously-researched series. – Australian Historical Studies Vol 35 Issue 12, 4 October 2004

Dr. Bennett takes us back in time, whilst enabling us to view the past from our present perspective, a remarkable gift … These books are most readable … very easy to read in one session, or a chapter or so at a time. … I think what interests me most about these books is the insight they present to the expectations of the community 160 years ago, as much as the revelation of the personality of the subject of the book. …. I would again highly recommend this [Sir Valentine Fleming] and all the previous “Lives” for any person, practitioner or otherwise, who has any interest in the early conduct of the Courts and the practice of the law in Colonial Tasmania. – Law Letter, Autumn 2008

All of these histories have been compelling reading and [Sir James Cockle] is no exception. If you have one ounce of interest in the history of our profession, you will enjoy this book immensely. I was unable to put it down, so well does the author place us into the reality of the characters about whom he writes. – Tasmanian Law Society Newsletter, August 2004

What makes the lives of Sir John Pedder and Sir James Cockle, Chief Justices of Tasmania and Queensland respectively, compelling reading is the glimpse they offer of the establishment of the rule of law in colonial Australia. The experiences they faced are simultaneously at odds with contemporary judicial practices and indicative of recurrent tension that exists between the judiciary and the other arms of the state. …

Often men with limited talent or experience are thrust into intolerable circumstances where governors with military inclinations sought to impose their authority.

Under Bennett’s pen, these lives are critically, though with sympathy, described and evaluated. The series and these two volumes in particular, make a valuable contribution to the stock of Australian history. – Dr John Williams, Canberra Times

Like their predecessors, [Bennett’s biographies of Pedder and Cockle] are thorough and sympathetic, enlivened with dry wit. They extend the picture of the colonies as small, faction-riven, rancorous, isolated, litigious communities with judges frequently at odds with government over legal issues and their own entitlements. – Law Society Journal (New South Wales), Vol 42 No 7, August 2004

These two volumes [Cockle and Pedder] continue the important and significant series, Lives of the Australian Chief Justices by the distinguished scholar and legal historian, Dr J M Bennett, of which seven volumes have now been published.

The development of the institutions of government in Australia and the foundations of the democratic society enjoyed by the people of this nation for the past century and a half owe much to those English lawyers who accepted judicial office in the Australian colonies …

The courts, all still in existence, over which they then presided, the legal profession, whose earliest members practised before them, and the two other arms of government, the legislature and the Executive, of the States that those colonies later became, are indeed fortunate to have the lives of the colonial chief justices researched and recorded by a legal historian of Dr Bennett’s stature.

As the then Governor of Tasmania, the Hon Sir Guy Green, in his introduction to Sir John Pedder, observed, “Most Australian historical studies fail to give any, or any adequate, treatment of the advent in the colonies of the rule of law and the institutions which sustained it.” This continuing biographical series by Dr Bennett goes far to redress that omission. – John Kennedy McLaughlin, (2004) 78 ALJ 243 [Australian Law Journal, April 2004]

Relatively pithy accounts of their judicial work in the several colonies, their stature as first lawyers and later judges, their interaction with both the legal profession and various colonial officers of state and the Colonial office, and their impact on colonial law and legal institutions. … These three books [Forbes, Dowling and a’Beckett] and those that follow them will add an important missing dimension to the field of legal history in Australia. Moreover, they make engaging reading. … – John McLaren, Australian Historical Studies, Vol 34 (122), October 2003

These Lives … are handy contributions to colonial history. – Law Society Journal (NSW), September 2002

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