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Justice, 5 October 1903 to 18 November 1912

Barrister, politician and founding High Court Justice, Richard O’Connor (1851-1912) was a champion of Australia’s Federation movement.¹ He was described by Alfred Deakin as the ‘most lovable of comrades … the fairest of opponents, and staunchest in the discharge of his obligations’,² and by Samuel Griffith as ‘absolutely fearless in the performance of his judicial duties’.³

O’Connor was born in Glebe, Sydney, to Irish-born parents.⁴ He was educated at St Mary’s College, Lyndhurst and Sydney Grammar School, where he met lifelong friend Edmund Barton. Graduating with a Master of Arts from the University of Sydney in 1873, O’Connor began to study law while working as a copy clerk in the state parliament’s Legislative Council. Admitted to the Bar in 1876, he combined his legal practice with working as a newspaper law reporter. From 1878 to 1883 he was Crown Prosecutor for the Northern District and was appointed a QC in 1896. In 1879, he married Sarah Hensleigh and they had seven children. O’Connor was nominated to the NSW Legislative Council by Premier Henry Parkes in 1887 and served as Minister for Justice (1891-93) and Solicitor-General (1893). In 1898 O’Connor resigned from the Legislative Council to contest the Legislative Assembly seat of Young, where he lost to Labor candidate (and future Prime Minister) John Watson.⁵

Steadfastly committed to Federation, O’Connor worked with Barton to establish the Federation League of NSW in 1893 and the Central Federation League in 1896. He was a delegate to the People’s Federal Convention that same year. Elected to the constitutional and drafting committees at the 1897-98 Australasian Federal Convention, O’Connor campaigned tirelessly for the Constitution Bill in both NSW referenda. After Federation was established, he was appointed Vice-President of the Executive Council in the Barton Government, and in March 1901 became the only Protectionist senator elected in NSW. As Government leader in the Senate, he skilfully negotiated a succession of controversial Bills through a hostile chamber, the last of which established the High Court of Australia.

O’Connor left the Senate in September 1903 to join Barton and Samuel Griffith on the first High Court bench, where he was determined to defend the ‘Constitution from the risk of what we consider a misrepresentation of its fundamental principles’.6 With some reluctance, in 1905 he took on an additional role as the first President of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, a position he held until 1907. A prodigious worker, O’Connor suffered from ill-health, but was prevented from retiring by his lack of a pension. He twice turned down a knighthood. O’Connor died suddenly in 1912 and was memorialised in the Sydney Morning Herald as ‘a man whose reputation for uprightness exceeded even his reputation for legal and political ability’.⁷

Percy Frederick Seaton Spence
Artist and illustrator Percy Spence (1868-1933) was born in Balmain, Sydney, and raised in Fiji. In 1887, he returned to Sydney and took art lessons at the Art Society of NSW, later becoming a foundation member of the Art Society’s Sketch Club. Spence worked as an illustrator for leading publications including the Daily Telegraph, the Sydney Mail, and the Sydney Bulletin. In 1892, he spent time at the artists’ colony, Curlew Camp, on Sydney Harbour’s north shore where he befriended artist Tom Roberts. In 1895, he moved to London and found work as an illustrator for various periodicals, including The Graphic, The Sphere and Punch. Spence joined the Chelsea Arts Club and exhibited at the Royal Academy. In 1905, he was back in Sydney where he held an exhibition. In 1909, he visited Australia again to work on a series of Australian themed illustrations. In 1914, he completed the large commissioned painting, Australian Fleet entering Sydney Harbour, which was purchased for the Royal Collection. During World War I, Spence served with the Royal Army Medical Corps alongside other Australian artists. His illustrations are published in various books and his paintings are held in significant collections in Australia and internationally.⁸

Richard Edward O’Connor
by Percy Frederick Seaton Spence
1913
Oil on canvas
240 x 186 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, High Court of Australia

References
1. Information in this biography has been taken from the following: M Rutledge, ‘O’Connor, Richard Edward (Dick) (1851–1912)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1988; M Rutledge, ‘O’Connor, Richard Edward (1851–1912)’, The Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate, Department of the Senate, Parliament of Australia, published first in hardcopy 2000; D Ash, ‘Richard Edward O’Connor’, Bar News, Summer 2008–09, pp. 77–86; H Manning, ‘Richard Edward O’Connor’, Australian Law Journal, vol. 25, no. 3, July 1951, pp. 11–18. Websites accessed 29 March 2021.
2. A Deakin, ‘Death of Mr Justice O’Connor’, House of Representatives, Debates, 19 November 1912, p. 5593.
3. Quoted in Rutledge, Australian Dictionary of Biography, op. cit.
4. His father, also Richard, was an officer of the NSW parliament, serving successively as librarian of the Legislative Council (1843), Clerk of the Legislative Assembly (1856) and clerk of the parliaments (1864). See LA Jeckeln, ‘O’Connor, Richard (1810–1876)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1974, accessed 22 April 2021.
5. B Nairn, ‘Watson, John Christian (Chris) (1867–1941)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1990, accessed 30 July 2021.
6. Rutledge, Australian Dictionary of Biography, op. cit.
7. ‘Mr. Justice O’Connor’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 November 1912, p. 18, accessed 23 April 2021.
8.‘Spence, Percy Frederick Seaton’, A McCulloch, S McCulloch and E McCulloch Childs, eds, The New McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Aus Art Editions in association with The Miegunyah Press, 2006, p. 901; J Kerr, ‘Percy Spence’, Design & Art Australia Online, 1996, updated 2007; MA Miles, ‘Spence, Percy Frederick Seaton (1868–1933)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1990. Websites accessed 26 July 2021.