Isaac Isaacs

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The Right Honourable  Sir Isaac Isaacs  GCB GCMG QC
9th Governor-General of Australia
In office 21 January 1931 – 23 January 1936
Preceded by	Lord Stonehaven
Succeeded by	Lord Gowrie
3rd Chief Justice of Australia
In office 2 April 1930 – 21 January 1931
Preceded by	Sir Adrian Knox
Succeeded by	Sir Frank Gavan Duffy
Puisne Justice of the High Court of Australia
In office 12 October 1906 – 2 April 1930
Preceded by	none
Succeeded by	Sir Edward McTiernan
Born	6 August 1855(1855-08-06) Melbourne
Died	11 February 1948 (aged 92) Melbourne
Profession	Barrister, Politician & Judge
Religion	Judaism

Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs GCB GCMG QC (6 August 1855–11 February 1948), Australian judge and politician, was the ninth Governor-General of Australia and the first born in Australia to occupy that post.

[edit] Early life

Isaac Isaacs was the son of Alfred Isaacs, a tailor of Jewish ancestry from the small town of Mlava, Poland. Seeking greater fortune, Alfred left Poland and worked his way across what is now Germany, spending some months in Berlin and Frankfurt. By 1845 he had passed through Paris and arrived to work in London. In London while working as a tailor he met Rebecca Abrahams, a fellow Jew; the two marrying in 1849. After news of the 1851 Victorian gold rush reached England, Australia became very popular destination for fortune seekers and the Isaacs decided to emigrate. By 1854 they had saved sufficient for the fare, departing from Liverpool in June 1854 and arriving in Melbourne in September.^[1] Some time after arriving the Isaacs moved into a cottage and shopfront in Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, where Alfred continued his tailoring. Isaac Alfred Isaacs was born in this cottage on 6 August 1855.^[2] His family moved to various locations around Melbourne while he was young, then in 1859 moved to Yackandandah in northern Victoria, where friends of the family already lived.^[3] At this time Yackandandah was a large gold mining settlement of 3,000 people.

Isaacs' three siblings, John who later became a solicitor and Victorian Member of Parliament, Carolyn and Hannah were born in Yackandandah. Another brother, born in Melbourne, and a sister, born in Yackandandah, both died very young.^[4] His first formal schooling was from sometime after 1860 at a small private establishment. At eight he won the school arithmetic prize, winning his photograph by the schoolmaster, who was also a photographer and bootmaker. Yackandandah state school was opened in 1863 and Isaacs enrolled as a pupil. Here he excelled academically, particularly in arithmetic and languages, though he was a frequent truant, walking off to spend time in the nearby mining camps. To help Isaacs gain a better quality education, in 1867, his family moved to nearby Beechworth first enrolling him in the Common school then in the Beechworth Grammar School. ^[5] He excelled at the Grammar School, becoming dux in his first year and winning many academic prizes.^[6] In his second year he was employed part time as an assistant teacher at the school, and took up after school tutoring of fellow students. In September 1870, when Isaacs was just 15 years old, he passed his examination as a pupil teacher and taught at the school from then until 1873. Isaacs was next employed as an assistant teacher at the Beechworth State School, the successor to the Common school.^[7]

While employed at the State School Isaacs had his first experience of the Law, as an unsuccessful litigant in an 1875 County Court case. He disputed a payment arrangement with the headmaster of his school, resigning as part of the dispute. After returning to teaching, now back at the Grammar School, he expanded his interest in the law; reading law books and attending court sittings.^[8]

As a child Isaacs became fluent in Russian, which his parents spoke frequently, as well as English and some German. Isaacs later gained varying degrees of proficiency in Italian, French, Greek, Hindustani and Chinese.^[9]

[edit] Working life

In 1875 he moved to Melbourne and found work at the Prothonotary's Office of the Law Department. In 1876, while still working full-time, he started studying law part-time at the University of Melbourne. He graduated in 1880 with a Master of Laws degree in 1883. In 1888 he married Deborah Jacobs with whom he had two daughters.

In 1892 Isaacs was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly as a radical liberal. In 1893 he became Solicitor-General. He was the member for Bogong from May 1892 until May 1893 and between June 1893 and May 1901. In 1897 he was elected to the Convention, that drafted the Australian Constitution, where he supported those arguing for a more democratic draft. He took silk as a Queen's Counsel in 1899.^[10]

Isaacs was elected to the first federal Parliament in 1901 to the seat of Indi as a critical supporter of Edmund Barton and his Protectionist government. He was one of a group of backbenchers pushing for more radical policies and he earned the dislike of many of his colleagues through what they saw as his aloofness and rather self-righteous attitude to politics.

Alfred Deakin appointed Isaacs Attorney-General in 1905 but he was a difficult colleague and in 1906 Deakin was keen to get him out of politics by appointing him to the High Court bench. He was the first serving Minister to resign from the Parliament. On the High Court he joined H. B. Higgins as a radical minority on the Court in opposition to the Chief Justice, Sir Samuel Griffith. He served on the Court for 24 years, acquiring a reputation as a learned radical but uncollegial justice.

In 1930 the Labor Prime Minister, James Scullin, appointed Isaacs, by this time aged 75, as Chief Justice. Shortly afterwards, however, Scullin decided to appoint an Australian as Governor-General and offered the post to Isaacs. This sparked a storm of protest from the Nationalist Opposition and the conservative press. Scullin personally advised King George V to make the appointment, during his 1930 trip to Europe, London and Ireland. The King reluctantly agreed to his advice, although his own preferred appointee^[11] was Field Marshal Sir William Birdwood (later Lord Birdwood), who had commanded the Australian Imperial Force during World War I.

With Australia in the depths of the Great Depression Isaacs agreed to a reduction in salary and conducted the office with great frugality. He gave up his official residences in Sydney and Melbourne and most official entertaining. He was the first Governor-General to live permanently at Government House, Canberra. This was well-received with the public as was Isaacs's image of rather austere dignity.

Although Isaacs was seen as a Labor appointment, the Scullin government fell at the end of 1931, and the rest of Isaacs's term was during the United Australia Party government of Joseph Lyons. There was some initial chill between Isaacs and the politicians who had opposed his appointment, but Lyons treated him with courtesy and he behaved with scrupulous propriety.

[edit] After retirement

Isaacs was 81 when his term ended in 1936, but his public life was far from over. He remained active in various causes for another decade and wrote frequently on matters of constitutional law. In the 1940s he became embroiled in controversy with the Jewish community both in Australia and internationally through his outspoken opposition to Zionism. Isaacs was not particularly religious but he insisted that Judaism was a religious identity and not a national or ethnic one. He opposed the notion of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Isaacs opposed Zionism partly because he disliked nationalism of all kinds and saw Zionism as a form of Jewish national chauvinism—and partly because he saw the Zionist agitation in Palestine as disloyalty to the British Empire to which he was devoted. When Zionist terrorists blew up the King David Hotel in 1946 he wrote that "the honour of Jews throughout the world demands the renunciation of political Zionism". He died in February 1948 and thus did not live to see the creation of the State of Israel.

[edit] Honours

In 1973 he was honoured on a postage stamp bearing his portrait issued by Australia Post [1].

[edit] Isaacs's written works

• The new agriculture, 1901, Melbourne : Department of Agriculture
• Opinion of the Hon. Isaac A. Isaacs, K.C., M.P., re the case of Lieutenant Witton, 1902, Melbourne : [s.n.]
• The Riverina Transport case, 1938, Melbourne : Australian Natives' Association, Victorian Board of Directors
• Australian democracy and our constitutional system, 1939, Melbourne : Horticultural Press
• An appeal for a greater Australia : the nation must itself take power for its post-war reconstruction; the constitutional issue stated; dynamic democracy, 1943, Melbourne : Horticultural Press
• Referendum powers : :a stepping stone to greater freedom, 1946, Melbourne : [s.n.]
• Palestine : peace and prosperity or war and destruction? Political Zionism : undemocratic, unjust, dangerous, 1946, Melbourne : Ramsey Ware Publishing

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Gordon, Max (1963). Sir Isaac Isaacs. Adelaide: Heinemann. 

[edit] External links

• University of Melbourne: Isaac Alfred Isaacs includes photograph (1898).
• Australian Dictionary of Biography: Isaac Alfred Isaacs includes portrait as Chief Justice
• National Library of Australia: Papers of Sir Isaac Isaacs
• Isaac Isaacs Victorian Parliamentary Profile
• Indi Election Results 1901