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Chief Justice, 27 April 1964 to 11 February 1981
Garfield Barwick (1903-1997) was a leading barrister, politician, and Australia’s longest serving Chief Justice. A gifted orator, he ‘had exceptional skills in simplifying legal principles, explaining them to a court; and an unusual capacity to conjure up attractive examples to make a point’.1
Born to working-class parents, Barwick won a bursary to study at the University of Sydney. He graduated with a BA (1921) and LLB (1925) and was awarded the University Medal (shared).2 In 1927, he was called to the NSW Bar and became one of Sydney’s most renowned barristers. He married Norma Symons in 1929 at Burwood, NSW, and they had a son and a daughter.3
Barwick took silk in 1942, and a year later he unsuccessfully represented the challenge to William Dobell’s 1943 Archibald Prize-winning Mr Joshua Smith. Barwick argued that it was ineligible for the prize as it was a caricature, rather than a portrait.4 He would have greater success in later prominent cases, mounting successful legal challenges to the Chifley Government’s legislative agenda including proposals to nationalise airlines5 and private banks.6 During the 1950s, Barwick was regarded as Australia’s leading counsel, was knighted in 1953, elevated to GCMG in 1965, and in June 1981 was appointed an AK.
In 1958, Barwick entered Parliament after encouragement from Prime Minister Robert Menzies. He was made Attorney-General, and later, Minister for External Affairs. Yet Barwick struggled with ‘transactional politics and social obligations’ and happily returned to law for the Chief Justiceship in 1964, after Sir Owen Dixon’s retirement.7 Barwick’s leadership of the High Court coincided with its pinnacle judicial status, as the provision for appeals to the Privy Council was abolished in 1972. Barwick noted that the High Court’s responsibility was to ‘declare the common law … for Australia’.8 During his tenure as Chief Justice, he ruled on constitutional questions of territorial seas,9 and whether legislation for Territorial senators10 was valid. He presided over important criminal law judgements which ‘enhance[d] the fairness of the trial and trial procedures’.11 He was a forceful advocate for having the Court control its own budget and administrative processes.
He advised the Governor-General on two occasions: first, on the disappearance of Prime Minister Harold Holt, and second, more controversially, advising Governor-General John Kerr that the reserve powers allowed for the dismissal of the Whitlam Government.
Barwick was a patron of the Australian Conservation Foundation and several charities for hearing- and sight-impaired. His retirement in 1981 was due to blindness brought on by diabetes.12 Barwick died on 13 July 1997, and was remembered by Prime Minister John Howard as ‘a truly remarkable Australian who demonstrated in very effective fashion what can be achieved from humble beginnings with those great qualities of determination, tenacity, and ability’.13
Brian James Dunlop
Realist painter Brian Dunlop (1938-2009) was born in Sydney to English immigrants and studied at the East Sydney Technical College. In 1958, while still studying, he won the Robert Le Gay Brereton Memorial Prize for drawing. During the early 1960s, Dunlop travelled to Europe and was inspired by the humanist values of the Renaissance artists. He returned to Sydney where he taught part-time at the National Art School whilst exhibiting in the major cities. Throughout the 1970s, he continued to regularly exhibit, winning Canberra’s Civic Permanent Art Award in 1976 and 1977, and the Sulman Prize in 1981. Following an artist residency at the University of Melbourne, Dunlop relocated to Tuscany where he studied the Renaissance artists and travelled to Rome, Greece, Morocco, Mallorca and India. Throughout his career he painted over 90 portraits of various public figures, including a commissioned portrait of Queen Elizabeth II in 1984. In his latter years, Dunlop lived and worked between Melbourne and Port Fairy on the south-west Victorian coast, the landscape being his principal inspiration. His works are held in private collections and numerous state and national collections.14
Garfield Edward John Barwick
by Brian James Dunlop
1976
Oil on canvas
117.7 x 129.6 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, High Court of Australia
References
1. R J Ellicott, ‘The life and career of Garfield Barwick’, The Sir Garfield Barwick Address, 17 August 2011, accessed 7 September, 2021.
2. G Winterton, ‘Barwick, Garfield Edward John’, in T Blackshield, M Coper and G Williams, eds, The Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia, Oxford University Press, accessed 2 November 2021.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. ‘Australian National Airways Pty Ltd v Commonwealth’ [1945], High Court of Australia, HCA 41; 71 CLR 29, accessed 7 September 2021.
6. ‘Bank of NSW v Commonwealth’ [1948], High Court of Australia, HCA 7; 76 CLR 1, accessed 7 September 2021.
7. T Frame, The Life and Death of Harold Holt, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 2005, p. 125.
8. Winterton, op. cit.
9. ‘New South Wales v The Commonwealth’ [1975], High Court of Australia, HCA 58; 135 CLR 337, accessed 7 September 2021.
10. ‘Western Australia v The Commonwealth’ [1975], High Court of Australia, HCA 46; 134 CLR 201; ‘Queensland v The Commonwealth’ [1977], High Court of Australia, HCA 60; 139 CLR 585. Websites accessed 7 September 2021.
11. A Mason, ‘Barwick Court’ in Blackshield et al., op. cit.
12. Winterton, op. cit.
13. J Howard, ‘Barwick, Rt Hon. Garfield Edward John, AK, GCMG’, House of Representatives, ‘Condolences’, 25 August 1997, pp. 6694–96, accessed 10 May 2021.
14. J Mendelssohn, ‘Brian Dunlop, b. 14 October 1940’, Design & Art Australia Online, 2007, updated 2015; ‘Brian Dunlop’, Australian Galleries; ‘Brian Dunlop 1938–2009’, National Portrait Gallery, 2018. Websites accessed 25 March 2021.