William Irvine (Australian politician)

Infobox_Premier
name =William Hill Irvine


order =21st Premier of Victoria
term_start =10 June 1902
term_end =16 February 1904
predecessor =Alexander Peacock
successor =Thomas Bent
birth_date =birth date|1858|7|6|df=y
birth_place =Newry, County Down, Ireland
death_date =death date and age|1943|8|20|1858|7|6|df=y
death_place =Toorak, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
spouse =Agnes Somerville
constituency =Flinders (Federal)
party =Commonwealth Liberal Party
languagesspoken =English
order2 =Former Attorney-General of Australia
term_start2 =1913
term_end2 =1914
predecessor2 =Billy Hughes
successor2 =Billy Hughes

Sir William Hill Irvine GCMG (6 July 1858 - 20 August 1943), Australian politician and judge, was the 21st Premier of Victoria. Irvine was born in Newry in County Down, Ireland, into a Scottish-Presbyterian family. He was educated in Armagh and Dublin, graduating in law in 1879 before migrating to Melbourne, where he taught in Presbyterian schools and read law at Melbourne University, gaining a masters degree in arts and law. He soon became a leading Melbourne barrister.

In 1894 Irvine was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly as a liberal. He was Attorney-General 1899-1900 and 1902-03 and Solicitor-General in 1903. He succeeded George Turner as leader of the Victorian Liberals, but was much more conservative than either Turner or the federal Protectionist Party leader, Alfred Deakin. In 1903 he displaced the more liberal Alexander Peacock and became Premier and Treasurer, holding office until 1904, when he was succeeded by Thomas Bent.

In 1906 Irvine was elected to the Australian House of Representatives for the seat of Flinders. First elected as an independent Protectionist, he became a member of Deakin's Commonwealth Liberal Party in 1908. He was Attorney-General in Joseph Cook's Liberal government of 1913-14. He was considered a potential Prime Minister of Australia, but his abrupt manner and hard-line conservatism made him unacceptable to many Liberals: he was known in Parliament as "Iceberg Irvine."

Recognising this, Irvine accepted the appointment as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria, which is the highest ranking court in the Australian State of Victoria. He held this position from 1918 until 1935.

He was knighted in 1914 and made GCMG in 1936. A keen motorist, he was a founding member of the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV) and was its patron from 1938 through 1943. In 1932 a painting of Irvine by Ernest Buckmaster won the Archibald Prize, Australia's best-known portrait prize.

References

*Geoff Browne, "A Biographical Register of the Victorian Parliament, 1900-84", Government Printer, Melbourne, 1985
*Don Garden, "Victoria: A History", Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1984
*Kathleen Thompson and Geoffrey Serle, "A Biographical Register of the Victorian Parliament, 1856-1900", Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1972
* Raymond Wright, "A People's Counsel. A History of the Parliament of Victoria, 1856-1990", Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1992

ee also

* Judiciary of Australia
* List of Judges of the Supreme Court of Victoria

External links

* [http://www.supremecourt.vic.gov.au Supreme Court of Victoria Website]