- Julian Salomons
and member of parliament. He was the only chief justice in New South Wales to be appointed and resign before he was ever sworn into office. Salomons was said to be short of stature and somewhat handicapped by defective eyesight. However, he had great industry, great powers of analysis, a keen intellect and unbounded energy and pertinacity. His wit and readiness were proverbial, and he was afraid of no judge.cite web
first=Percival
last=Serle
title =Salomons, Sir Julian Emanuel (1835 - 1909)
publisher =Project Gutenberg Australia
work=Dictionary of Australian Biography
url =http://gutenberg.net.au/dictbiog/0-dict-biogSa-Sp.html#salomons1
accessdate = 2007-09-13]Early years
Salomons was born at
Edgbaston ,Warwickshire ,England , on4 November 1836 as Julian Emanuel Solomons. He came to Australia aged 16 years on board the Atalanta on4 September 1853 . He was employed in a book shop and as a stockbroker’s clerk. In 1855 he was appointed the secretary of the Great Synagogue at Sydney.After passing the preliminary examination of the Barristers Admission Board (now the Legal Profession Admission Board) in 1857, he returned to England in 1858 where he entered
Gray's Inn and was called to the bar on26 January 1861 . He returned to Sydney and was admitted to the New South Wales Bar on8 July 1861 and then returned to England to marry his cousin, Louisa Solomons, atLower Edmonton ,Middlesex , England, on17 December 1862 .Australian Dictionary of Biography
last=Edgar
first= Suzanne
coauthor= Nairn, Bede
authorlink=
year=1972
id=A060093b
title= Salomons, Sir Julian Emanuel (1835 - 1909)
accessdate=2007-09-13]Legal career
He returned to Sydney after his marriage and managed a successful practice as a barrister. He first made a reputation in criminal cases. He had great industry, great powers of analysis, a keen intellect and unbounded energy and pertinacity. However, his passion for work probably led to a decline in his health and he made frequent trips to Europe to recover from these bouts.One of the significant cases he was involved with was the case of Louis Bertrand who was sentenced to death on a charge of murder. Bertrand came to be known as the “Mad Dentist of Wynyard Square”. Bertrand had tried to kill Henry Kinder, the husband of his mistress Ellen Kinder on a number of occasions. Bertrand finally shot him, but his shot failed to kill. However, his actions persuaded his mistress to poison Kinder. This was successful. In 1866 Bertrand was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. His mistress was discharged on account of a lack of evidence. [cite web
title =Henry Louis Bertrand
work =Law and Justice
publisher =Mitchell Library
url =http://www.atmitchell.com/journeys/law/justice/felons/bertrand/bertrand.cfm
accessdate = 2007-09-13 ] Salomons was instructed after the trial and was able to eventually convince the Full Court of theSupreme Court of New South Wales that Bertrand should have a new trial. The decision was tied with two judges for a new trial and two judges against. One judge subsequently retracted his judgment resulting in a win for Salomons. Rather bullishly, Salomons after winning the appeal went further to argue that the judge could not retract his judgment in law. Luckily for his client, the court held that it could and the order for retrial stood. [cite web
first= John D
second=Fitzgerald
title =Henry Louis Bertrand
work =Studies in Australian crime
publisher =Gaslight
url =http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/austrX01.htm
accessdate = 2007-09-13 ] However, the court’s decision for a new trial was subsequently overturned on appeal to thePrivy Council on the basis that the Supreme Court could not make such an order. The New South Wales Governor commuted Bertrand’s sentence to life.Royal commissioner
In 1870 Salomons was a member of the Law Reform Commission. The purpose of a law reform commission is to make recommendations on updating and changing laws. On
16 August 1881 he was appointed aroyal commissioner to inquire into the affairs of the Milburn Creek Copper Mining Co Ltd. Salomons reported on3 March 1881 that 'there was an appropriation by the trustees themselves, not only without the consent or knowledge of their co-shareholders, but under circumstances of concealment and false statement, evidencing a consciousness on their part, that such appropriation was unauthorised and unjustifiable'. The report was to lead to Ezekiel Alexander Baker, a member of parliament and one of the trustees, being expelled from Parliament.First parliamentary career
Salomons unsuccessfully ran for parliament in 1869 and instead became
solicitor-general in December of that year. He held that position for nearly a year until SirCharles Cowper took over from SirJohn Robertson as premier. He was appointed as a member of theNew South Wales Legislative Council , a position he held for six months, before resigning on14 February 1871 .cite web
title =Sir Julian Emanuel Salomons (1836 - 1909)
work =Members of Parliament
publisher =Parliament of New South Wales
url =http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/members.nsf/1fb6ebed995667c2ca256ea100825164/9893f6e1c6bbd26dca256cb6001a9c53!OpenDocument
accessdate = 2007-09-13 ]Appointment as chief justice
Salomons advocacy had earned him a huge reputation. When Chief Justice Sir
James Martin died, the position was first offered toWilliam Bede Dalley and thenFrederick Matthew Darley . Both refused. Salomons was then offered the position. After some hesitation, Salomons accepted notwithstanding that it involved a substantial reduction in income. His appointment attracted controversy in some quarters and it was reputed that the other judges of the court were against his appointment. BiographerPercival Serle states that Salomons’s response to criticism was that his "appointment appears to be so wholly unjustifiable [to JusticeWilliam Windeyer ] as to have led to the utterance by him of such expressions and opinions … as to make any intercourse in the future between him and me quite impossible". Serle states that each of the judges of the court denied making any such statements. He had general support with most newspapers and from the legal profession. Nevertheless, he decided on19 November 1886 to resign the position before actually taking the oath of office. He was therefore gazetted as chief justice for only six days, having resigned twelve days after being offered the position.econd parliamentary career
He was appointed a second time as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council on
7 March 1887 , holding office for over 11 years until20 February 1899 . During that term, he was vice-president of the Executive Council twice, both for nearly a year between7 March 1887 and16 January 1889 and then again between23 October 1891 and26 January 1893 . He was knighted in 1891 during this second vice-presidency. It was during this second term that it is thought that Salomons gave the longest speech in the history of the council. He spoke for approximately eight hours on the Federation Bill. His speech carried over two days on both the 28 and29 July 1897 . The Federation Bill was an important issue in the history of the colony of New South Wales as it led to the birth of the nation of Australia. [cite web
title =Miscellaneous NSW Parliamentary Facts
publisher =Parliament of New South Wales
url =http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/web/common.nsf/key/ResourcesFactsmiscfact
accessdate = 2007-09-13 ]Famous quotes
Salomons was reported to have an unusual talent for wit. After the federation of the Australian colonies, the newly established
High Court of Australia was said to be routinely overturning decisions of the various Supreme Courts around Australia. Salomons suggested in argument before the Supreme Court that the judges of the court should append the following to all Supreme Court judgments:“We are unanimously of the opinion that judgment ought to be entered for (letus say) the plaintiff, but to save the trouble and expense to the parties of anappeal to the High Court, we order judgment to be entered for the defendant.” [cite journal
first=Malcolm
last=Park
title =Jean who? (or Good Lord, your place has gone up in flames!)
publisher =Law Institute Journal
issue=1026-1028
volume=65
date= November 1991
url =http://eprints.unimelb.edu.au/archive/00001829/01/JeanWho.pdf
accessdate = 2007-09-13 ]On the question of Sir
Samuel Griffith ’s English translation ofDante Alighieri which had received numerous unflattering reviews, it was reported that when Griffith presented a copy to Salomons, the latter asked Griffith to autograph the fly leaf, explaining that "I should not like anyone to think that I had borrowed the book, even less should I like anyone to think that I had bought it”. [W.M. Hughes, Policies and Potentates (1950), quoted in: cite web
title = The Trial of Australia's Last Bushrangers
publisher =Lex Scripta
date=31 January 2001
url =http://www.lexscripta.com/articles/kenniff.html
accessdate = 2007-09-13 ] Salomons was a supporter of religion being a moderator of human behaviour. He endowed a local public school on the basis that religion was taught as a subject and was upset when it was not. In an address on Australian Federation, he said that having an “education without religion is like putting a sword into the hands of a savage”. Although he was Jewish, he believed that “any one of the branches of the great Christian religion …, although they may differ in their theological forms, is better than no religion”.Later life
Salomons acted as the agent-general for New South Wales at London between 1899 and 1900. He was also appointed standing counsel for the Commonwealth government in New South Wales in 1903 and all but practically retired from legal practice in 1907. He made a few appearances in court after 1907. He was also a Trustee of
Art Gallery of New South Wales and a member ofBarristers Admission Board . He died after a short illness on6 April 1909 of a cerebral haemorrhage in his own home “Sherbourne” in Woollahra,Sydney . He was buried in the Hebrew portion of Rookwood cemetery in Sydney’s west.References
Persondata
NAME=Salomons, Julian Emanuel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Australia nbarrister ,royal commissioner ,solicitor-general ,chief justice and member of parliament
DATE OF BIRTH=4 November 1836
PLACE OF BIRTH=Edgbaston ,Warwickshire ,England
DATE OF DEATH=6 April 1909
PLACE OF DEATH=Woollahra, New South Wales
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