J.W. Shaw

H.V. Evatt's Prizes at Fort Street High School

Herbert Vere Evatt (1894–1965) — Labor leader, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Commonwealth Attorney General, High Court Justice, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of NSW — was a brilliant scholar, both at Fort Street High School and Sydney University. This is evident in various biographies including: Allan Dalziel, Evatt the Enigma, Melbourne, 1967, pp. 5, 6; Kylie Tennant, Evatt: Politics and Justice, Sydney, 1970, pp. 19, 35; Ken Buckley, Barbara Dale, Wayne Reynolds, Doc Evatt, Melbourne, 1994, pp. 6, 9, 10 (this biography lists on p. 6 three of Evatt's school prizes); Ronald S. Horan, Fort Street, Sydney, 1989, p. 157; G.C. Bottom in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 14, p. 108.	1
Buckley et al made reference to Alexander Kilgour who signed Evatt's school prizes and was headmaster of Fort Street at the relevant time. He is described as a Scot, dedicated as a teacher, an able administrator and a strong paternal influence on the young Evatt; see also Horan at p. 156. Kilgour was regarded by Sir Garfield Barwick as an influence, not only on the students and staff, but also upon the Department of Education; he saw the school as providing the professional needs of Sydney, medicine, law, surveyors and the like (Clarice Morris, The School on the Hill, Sydney, 1980, pp. 78, 80).	2
At secondary school, Evatt was awarded a number of prizes which have not been specified in detail. My research reveals the following were awarded (although the list is probably not exhaustive): (1911) Borksmann Prize for Mathematics: L.T. Hobhouse, Liberalism, Williams and Norgate, London, 1900; (this book, which is marked in various places, may have been influential upon Evatt's University thesis on 'Liberalism', referred to below). (undated) Old Boys' Prize for English: Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte D'Arthur, Vols 1, 2 (this edition first published in 1906). (undated) Old Boys' Prize for English: Thomas Babington Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Vol. 1, (this edition first published in 1906). (undated) Old Boys' Prize for English: Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, et al, The Spectator, Vol. 4 (this edition first published in 1711). (undated) Old Boys' Prize for English: James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 2, 1776–1784, (this edition first published in 1907). (undated) Old Boys' Prize for English: Thomas de Quincy, The Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1907). (undated) Old Boys' Prize for English: Thomas Bulfinch, The Age of Fable (1855). (undated) Old Boys' Prize for English: Coleridge's Essays and Lectures on Shakespeare and some other old poets and dramatists (1907). (undated) Old Boys' Prize for English: Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1906). It is well known that Evatt, whilst a justice of the High Court of Australia, published a number of scholarly works of historical and legal significance: The King and his Dominion Governors (a study of the reserve powers of the Crown in Great Britain and the Dominions), F.W. Cheshire, Melbourne, 1936 (2^nd ed. 1967); Rum Rebellion (a study of the overthrow of Governor Bligh by John Macarthur and the New South Wales Corp), Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1938; Australian Labour Leader (the story of W.A. Holman and the Labour Movement), Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1940; Injustice Within the Law (a study of the case of the Dorsetshire Labourers), Law Book Co, Sydney, 1937; (this was a work, as Bishop Burgmann said in his foreword, which argued the proposition that 'the Martyrs of Tolpuddle speak across the years of the price by which alone justice can be set up on the earth'; 'The British Dominions as Mandatories' in The Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law: Proceedings, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1935, p. 27; 'The Jury System in Australia', Australian Law Journal, vol. 10, 1936, p. 49; 'The Legal Foundations of New South Wales', Australian Law Journal, vol. 11, 1938, p. 409.	3
Evatt's study of the Rum Rebellion sought to rescue Governor Bligh from the Hollywood character of the earlier episode of the mutiny on the Bounty. It also advances a theory that the rule of law and the role of the courts had a liberating impact on the colonial policy, a theme adopted and developed in David Neal, The Rule of Law in a Penal Colony, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991.	4
Some writings from Evatt's post-judicial days: Post-WarReconstruction: a Case for Greater Commonwealth Powers, prepared for the Constitutional Convention at Canberra, November 1942, Canberra: L.F. Johnston, Commonwealth Govt. Printer, [1942?] Post-War Reconstruction: Temporary Alterations to the Constitution: notes on the fourteen powers and the three safeguards, Canberra, Government Printer, [194-?] Foreign Policy of Australia, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1945. Dr Evatt's doctoral thesis, The Royal Prerogative was published by the Law Book Company in 1987 with a foreword by the then Governor-General, Sir Ninian Stephens (Law Book Co., North Ryde, NSW, 1987). It was originally presented as the author's thesis (LLD) University of Sydney, 1924 under the title, Certain Aspects of the Royal Prerogative : a Study in Constitutional Law.	5
Evatt's publication, Liberalism in Australia (an historical sketch of Australian politics down to the year 1915), Law Book Co., 1918 was awarded the Beauchamp Prize Essay of 1915 at Sydney University. Reference is made in the bibliography to Hobhouse's work Liberalism which the author had been given at high school. Evatt drew attention to Lachlan Macquarie's convict emancipation policy — noting that he had encouraged the former convicts to take up land and gave them important offices to fill. This, it was argued, was an exemplification of British Liberalism: by nature, people are entitled to be happy and good, but they must throw off the chains imposed by the State (to borrow the language of Professor Wood, the Challis Professor of History at the University of Sydney, who wrote the foreword to Evatt's publication). Evatt's aim was to 'show how Liberalism's first triumphs were won in Australia over the evils of the irresponsible government and the early convictism'. For Evatt, the forces of Liberalism had rejected Laborist policies of nationalisation but entered into competition with Labor 'in their common efforts to extend the powers of the community as a whole' (p. 59). The young Evatt was somewhat sceptical about socialism: he writes, it presents so many aspects and embraces so many conceptions and ideas that it is something to all men and something to each point of view ... in a sense we are all socialists now, for we all believe in some form of government (p. 63).	6
Evatt's public-school background was emphasised by his friend since 1913, the archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe in 'Australia Today is Far From a Socialist Society', Labour History, no. 58, 1990, at p. 101.	7
Evatt's thesis was to show the 'triumphs' of Liberalism — the defeat of irresponsible government and convictism. He argued that Liberal principles inspired the progressive, but separated from these generalisations the question of 'protection' as potentially in contradiction with the doctrines of J.S. Mill and Jeremy Bentham (p. 3).	8
For Professor Wood, British Liberalism was an 'expression of faith which towards the close of the eighteenth century began to revolutionise the society of all the lands of Europe (Foreword).	9
Hobhouse was, as at the date of his publication, the Professor of Sociology at London University. His argument was that Liberalism assailed the old order, and to the fundamental ideas directing its advance in particular areas: civil liberty, fiscal liberty, personal liberty, social liberty, economic liberty, domestic liberty, local, racial and natural liberty, international liberty, and political liberty and popular sovereignty. (pp. 21–49).	10
There is little doubt that the enigmatic, ambitious and controversial Evatt was influenced by his Fort Street prizes.	11

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