This biography of Edmund Barton shows how the easy-going Sydney politician, with a reputation for enjoying the pleasures of the table and a fondness for cricket, became possessed by one enduring enthusiasm: to make a new country from a collection of British colonies. How did Edmund Barton, although only one of many who contributed to the federal cause, come to be regarded as its actual and symbolic leader? In the company of figures like Henry Parkes, Samuel Griffith, George Reid and Alfred Deakin, Barton was by no measure the most flamboyant or forceful of these campaigners. So what led the supporters of the Federation to acknowledge the man caricatured in the press as "Tosspot Toby" as the necessary man for the job of first Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia? Starting as a struggling young Sydney lawyer, blooded in the turbulent politics of colonial New South Wales, Barton came to understand that Federation mattered.
The genial gentleman from clubland embarked on a personal crusade: he found common ground between strident colonial rivals, steered a draft constitution through two fractious conventions, travelled thousands of kilometres to convince open-air audences, confronted interfering London "statesmen", risked bankruptcy, and negotiated the necessary compromises to create a new political entity. Without Barton's talents, Australia might not have become a commonwealth in 1901.
- ISBN13 9781865084091
- Publish Date 1 November 2000
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 20 June 2009
- Publish Country AU
- Imprint Allen & Unwin
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 392
- Language English