Where was alfred deakin born

&#;DEAKIN, ALFRED (), Australian politician, was born at Melbourne 3 August He was the only son of William Deakin, an accountant, by his wife, Sarah Bill, daughter of a Shropshire farmer. Educated from to at the Church of England grammar school, Melbourne, he decided to adopt the law as a profession, and, after study at the university of Melbourne, he was admitted in September to the Victorian bar.

Alfred deakin early life

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But he was more attracted by literature, and was persuaded by David Syme [q.v.], who then controlled the Melbourne Age, to take up journalism. Under Syme’s influence he finally abandoned the belief in free trade which he had learned from the works of John Stuart Mill, and was induced in to stand for the constituency of West Bourke as a supporter of (Sir) Graham Berry [q.v.] in his violent conflict with the conservatives, who had the support of the legislative council, that body being elected on a high property franchise.

Successful at the polls, Deakin insisted as soon as parliament met on resigning his seat, as the validity of his election was challenged on a technicality. In the ensuing by-election he was defeated, and also at the general election of February ; in July , however, he won the seat at the new general election necessitated by the fall of the new ministry.

Brief biography of jose rizal In March , at the annual conference of the A. If anyone held the balance in parliament it was Deakin, between Labor and 'socialism' on the left and free trade or anti-socialism on the right. With fellow members he devised the Protectionist policy speech, delivered by Barton at Maitland on 17 January He provided stability of government enabling the passing of constructive legislation, and at the time only he seemed able to do that.

He immediately sought to promote a coalition between Berry and a section of the conservatives, and, when this failed, declined the attorney-generalship offered by Berry, though he supported his ministry and in won attention by a forcible denunciation of the errors of Victorian land legislation. In coalition came about between Berry and James Service [q.v.], and Deakin entered the ministry in March as minister of water supply and commissioner of public works, accepting in November the solicitor-generalship also.

At the end of , as president of a commission on water supply, he undertook a mission to America, the results of which were recorded in his Irrigation in Western America (). On the close of the coalition ministry, he formed, as leader of the liberal party, a new coalition with Duncan Gillies [q.v.], taking office in as chief secretary and minister of water supply; and in this capacity secured the passage of the Irrigation Act of and the adoption of an irrigation policy, which, at first seriously defective, finally proved a marked success.

Sample of brief biography While Sir Robert Garran , his energetic departmental secretary, was indispensable, Deakin was an active attorney-general, especially in preparing opinions and drafting bills for the public service, arbitration and the High Court. Asquith and Lloyd George remained implacably opposed. Deakin was sworn in for the third and last time as prime minister on 2 June An outcome of his visit to Europe was his Irrigation in Egypt and Italy

Next year he visited England as representative of Victoria at the colonial conference summoned to mark the jubilee of the Queen’s reign. His strictures on the failure of British policy as regards New Guinea and the New Hebrides were combined with an insistence on the unity of the Empire, which attracted favourable attention; while his democratic spirit was exhibited in his refusal of the then much coveted order, the K.C.M.G.

An outcome of his visit to Europe was his Irrigation in Egypt and Italy (). Disaster, however, awaited the reckless finance of the ministry, which fell in November , and, though Deakin was offered office in every subsequent Victorian government up to , &#;he preferred to remain a private member.

By Syme’s invitation he visited India in ; his investigations of irrigation and his comments on British rule and Indian life, religion, and art are recorded in Irrigated India () and Temple and Tomb ().

Alfred deakin brief biography samples Deakin had disliked the naval agreement since its inception in , and his sustained efforts to implement Australian naval aspirations began several years before the Imperial Conference. She and the few I met who knew him were captivated by his warmth and intelligence and fired by his ambitions for Australia as a new country that could pick the best of the old world and leave the rest behind. In Victoria, Deakin set out to resurrect the corpse. He was six feet about cm tall, dark haired and dark eyed, his handsome, alert face fashionably bearded.

From Deakin worked seriously at the bar as a means of livelihood, and his main political work was devoted to furthering the federation of Australia. While still in office, he had been a member of the conference at Melbourne in , and he was asked to represent Victoria at the conventions of and Never a great constitutional lawyer, his direct contribution to the framing of the constitution was of small account, but he excelled in effecting the essential compromises between conflicting views, and it was largely due to his platform advocacy that the people of Victoria were induced in to approve federation by an overwhelming vote.

In he was sent by the Victorian government to London to take part in the discussions with Mr. Joseph Chamberlain as to the passage of the Constitution Bill through the imperial parliament, and he played an important part in securing the compromise which reserved to the Commonwealth high court the power of deciding all constitutional issues.

Deakin’s services to federation were naturally rewarded by his appointment as attorney-general in the first Commonwealth ministry (January ) of (Sir) Edmund Barton [q.v.], and he was the moving spirit of the ministry. On Barton’s retirement in September to become a judge of the newly established high court, Deakin became prime minister.

Convinced that responsible government could only be worked on the basis of two parties, and confronted by two opposition parties, the supporters of a revenue tariff, led by (Sir) George Reid [q.v.], and the labour party, he invited overtures for coalition. Neither party responded, and, as a convinced federalist, Deakin refused the labour demand to subject the public services of the States to the control of the Commonwealth court of conciliation and arbitration.

How to write brief biography: As joint coalition leader he shared power and responsibility in a government whose own borrowing and investment policies contributed much to the onset of the collapse and the severity of the depression. In ill health, Deakin resigned as Opposition Leader on 20 January Reid's charges of treachery were to be expected, but Deakin's seemingly shabby treatment of the four Protectionists in the coalition, especially of Turner, lost him further goodwill and respect. In the end differences came down to clause 74, which forbade appeals to the Privy Council in matters affecting the interpretation of the Constitution.

Defeat ensued, and a labour ministry held a feeble tenure of office from April to August , when it was ousted by a coalition between Reid and a section of Deakin’s following. Deakin had declined to serve under Reid, but had consented to a compact to last until May ; in June , however, dislike of Reid and anxiety lest a truce should prove harmful to protection induced him to break his compact.

Reid naturally resented this act, and labour would not do more than give the new ministry lukewarm support, so that its period of office, terminated by the defection of labour in November , was largely barren of achievement.

In Deakin revisited England for the colonial conference; his chief endeavour on that occasion was to convince the public of the necessity of consolidating the Empire by preferential tariffs, despite the decisive verdict of the British electorate in against protection; but he also sought the concurrence of the Admiralty in his scheme for an independent Australian navy.

His defence bill of was taken up in part by his successor, Andrew Fisher; and from June to April he enjoyed, by coalition with (Sir) Joseph Cook, a brief term of office, marked by the participation of the Commonwealth in an imperial naval and military conference which sanctioned Deakin’s naval scheme in its main idea. The public, however, resented as dishonourable this coalition of old enemies, and the general election of terminated Deakin’s period of office.

His mental powers, fatally overstrained by his efforts of , had long been impaired, and though loyalty kept him leader of the opposition until the end of , it was at the cost of any chance of recuperation. A brief tenure of the chairmanship of a royal commission on food supplies, appointed in August , and a visit to San Francisco in to represent Australia at the Panama-Pacific international exhibition, ended his official work; his memory, and his power of co-ordinating his ideas, were steadily failing; a flying visit to London in brought no relief, and thereafter until his death at Melbourne 7 October , his time was spent there or at his seaside cottage.

Examples of brief biography Late in Berry and Service retired and were succeeded, as leaders of the coalition, by Deakin and Duncan Gillies. He did not excel at games. The second Deakin ministry, July —November , was remarkably productive. Kingston, pioneer of compulsory arbitration, became its first Federal casualty when, in July , he resigned over cabinet's refusal to extend the bill's scope to all seamen engaged in coastal trade.

He was survived by his wife, Pattie, eldest daughter of H. Junor Browne, a Melbourne merchant, to whom he was married in , and by three daughters.

Deakin’s contemporaries reproached him with an unpractical idealism and lack of understanding of the character of the Australian public. His ideals were in fact sane and moderate, but his anxiety to secure rapid results led him throughout his career to seek coalitions which were not very effective.

He aimed at protection for manufacturers, with improved conditions for workers and regard for consumers, but only the first of these objects ‘was achieved’ by his ministries. &#;He was able to expel the Kanakas and close the door to Asiatics, but he could effect nothing for British immigration into the Commonwealth. He failed to promote imperial unity, and his defence schemes were matured by others.

But his genius for compromise served the federal cause in the inception of the Commonwealth, and no Australian of his time surpassed him in personal integrity and devotion to what he deemed duty.

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Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Deakin, Alfred

His oratorical power was undoubted, though the wealth of his ideas and the rapidity of his delivery often confused his hearers. His interest in literature, religion, spiritualism, philosophy, and art was insatiable, but among his copious writings on these and political topics he left nothing ripe for publication.

A devoted husband and father, a charming friend, and a brilliant conversationalist, he yet felt himself, as his private papers show, in a sense isolated in life, a fact which doubtless explains in some measure his comparative failure in politics.