Edmund Barton

Edmund Barton

Sir Edmund Barton, GCMG, KC (18 January 1849 – 7 January 1920), Australian politician and judge, served as the first Prime Minister of Australia and became a founding justice of the High Court of Australia.

Barton first became an MP in 1879, in the Parliament of New South Wales. He contributed solidly to the federation movement through the 1890s, eventually contesting the inaugural 1901 federal election as head of a caretaker Protectionist Party federal government. No party won a majority; however, the government was supported by the Australian Labor Party, against the opposition Free Trade Party.

Barton resigned from the position of Prime Minister of Australia in 1903. Barton became a judge of Australia's High Court, serving for 17 years until his death in 1920.

Read more about Edmund Barton:  Early Life, First Prime Minister, Judicial Career, Death and Family, Honours

Famous quotes containing the word barton:

    If woman alone had suffered under these mistaken traditions [of women’s subordination], if she could have borne the evil by herself, it would have been less pitiful, but her brother man, in the laws he created and ignorantly worshipped, has suffered with her. He has lost her highest help; he has crippled the intelligence he needed; he has belittled the very source of his own being and dwarfed the image of his Maker.
    —Clara Barton (1821–1912)