The Francis Forbes Lectures    
     
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The 2006 Lecture    
     
The 2006 Forbes lecture delivered by Rosemary Annable on 9 November 2006 in the Common Room of the New South Wales Bar Association.      
     
A setting for justice: building for the Supreme Court of New South Wales   About the lecturer
     

In October 1819 Governor Macquarie laid the foundation stone for ‘the new Courthouse in Hyde Park’, the first permanent, purpose-built home for the Colony’s law courts.  Intended as a handsome ornament to the town of Sydney, it was to be designed by the emancipist architect, Francis Greenway. Eight years later when the building was finally completed, it was on another site, to a different design and was already too small for its important purpose. In 1833 its judicial occupants thought it ‘inconvenient, inadequate and comfortless’. A hundred years later the complaint was just the same.

When it finally vacated the site in 1977, after one hundred and fifty years of use, to move into a new building on Queen’s Square, it seemed as if the Supreme Court’s continuing association with its first court house would be only token. But twenty years later the Supreme Court moved back and as work began to conserve and enhance these much complained of buildings, some of their history began to be revealed.

Where did it all go wrong? Whose design was it? And why could no-one put it right?

   Rosemary Annable is a consultant historian who has worked for over twenty years in the field of heritage studies, researching buildings and sites for conservation projects. She is a Fellow, and past President, of the Royal Australian Historical Society; a Fellow of the Federation of Australian Historical Societies; and the Honorary Archivist of St James’ Anglican Church, the Supreme Court’s closest and oldest neighbour. She is currently a member of the Heritage Council of New South Wales and the Chair of its History Panel. Rosemary’s research on the King Street Courts was undertaken for the firm of PTW Architects, on behalf of the Attorney-General’s Department, as part of the extensive programme of restoration and refurbishment undertaken on the King Street Courts site since 1997.
     
The 2005 Lecture    
     

‘New quilts from old rags’


The Francis Forbes Society for Australian Legal History held its annual lecture on Thursday, 3 November 2005 in the Bar Association Common Room. Titled ‘New quilts from old rags’, it was delivered by the Hon Justice B H McPherson CBE, of the Queensland Court of Appeal.


Justice McPherson discussed three of the principal ways in which English law was transmitted to British overseas territories: letters patent and colonial charters, the king’s
duty of protecting his subjects and the ‘theory of colonial birthright’.

Following the American Revolution, the British Parliament did not legislate for most communities of free English settlers beyond the seas. The colonies in eastern Australia differed insofar as many of the early arrivals were either ‘under military discipline’, or convicted felons who had been sentenced to death and so were attainted and unable to sue or own property. It was for this reason, McPherson JA argued, that in 1828 English law was directly extended by an imperial Act of the Parliament - the Australian Courts Act.


The 2005 Forbes Lecture will be published in 2006.

   
     
The 2004 Lecture    
     

Why should we remember James Dowling, the second Chief Justice of NSW? Coming between two great chief justices, Francis Forbes and Alfred Stephen, Dowling is usually overlooked. But at his death in 1844, he left behind about 250 judicial notebooks from his time on the NSW bench. Among them was a collection that he called ‘Select Cases’. Dowling had intended to publish these as the first law reports in any Australian colony. Now, after a delay of 160 years, the Forbes Society intends to publish them.


Tim Castle will explain why Dowling and his ‘Select Cases’ are so important to the development of the law and the courts in NSW. Bruce Kercher will then refer to a few of the Select Cases, highlighting the process by which received English law was adapted in order to meet the needs of a frontier society. In the cases concerning Aborigines in particular, we can see a struggle over the legal recognition of Aboriginal autonomy. The case law contained therein is richer than many people would imagine today.

    
   
     
The 2003 Lecture    
     

On 15 October 2003 the Hon PE Powell AM QC, formerly a judge of the NSW Court of Appeal and of the Equity Division of the Supreme Court of NSW, delivered the second, annual Francis Forbes Lecture on Australian legal history.

The lecture was entitled: ‘The origins and development of the Protective Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of NSW’.

Before his elevation to the Court of Appeal in 1993 he served as the court’s Protective Judge (1982–1993) at a time when that jurisdiction came under close public scrutiny. His Honour’s judgments were instrumental in development of the law, as was his participation in processes for legislative reform in both the civil and criminal arenas.

    
     
     
The 2002 Lecture    
     

The inaugural Francis Forbes lecture on Australian legal history was held on 28 November 2002, delivered by Ian Barker QC, speaking on 'The history of trial by jury in New South Wales'. Ian Barker QC was president of the New South Wales Bar Association between December 1997 and November 1999.

Details regarding publication of the lecture will be announced shortly. Click here for a summary of the lecture delivered on 28 November 2002.

 
  
 
 
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