Thomas Harvey Lewis (1828 - 1901) has only one known painting, Hyde Park - the old days of merry Cricket Club matches, a cricket match that took place on 27 October 1843 between a local Sydney team and a team representing an Imperial regiment then stationed in Sydney. In the background the Supremen Court, St James' Church and Hyde Park Barracks can been seen.
Sir Francis Forbes (1784-1841) served as the first Chief Justice of New South Wales. Born in Bermuda, Forbes travelled to London to study law at the age of 19, and was called to the Bar in 1812. In 1822 following an inquiry into the colony’s judicial affairs, Forbes was appointed the first Chief Justice of New South Wales to oversee the reform of the legal system. He is responsible for assisting the drafting the New South Wales Act 1823 which, along with the Charter of Justice, formed the basis of the Supreme Court’s comprehensive jurisdiction in New South Wales. He was an ex officio member of the Executive Council and the Legislative Council, with considerable power conferred upon him as sole judge.
During his time as Chief Justice, Forbes championed the introduction of trial by jury in New South Wales, was a strong advocate for free education, and ultimately left an impressive legacy by establishing legal precedents that remain relevant today.
He retired as Chief Justice in 1837 following bouts of ill-health, spurred on by conflict with governor Sir Ralph Darling. In the same year he received a Knighthood for his “integrity and ability, legal knowledge and devotion to His Majesty’s service.”
Photograph negative is held by the State Library of Western Australia. In 1916, Ada Norton became one of the first women to successfully claim her abusive late husband’s estate using the backdated Testator’s Family Maintenance (TFM) Act 1912. When member of the Legislative Assembly John Norton died in 1916, his estate was valued at 106,000 pounds. His will excluded his wife Ada, whom had brought divorce proceedings against him one year earlier on the grounds of habitual cruelty and adultery. She brought a claim for the estate under the Testator’s Family Maintenance Act and was among one of the first successful applicants under the Act.
Frederick Garling (1775-1848) was the first appointed solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. Born in London, he worked as an architect, attorney in the Court of King’s Bench and a solicitor in the Court of Chancery. In 1814, he was selected to travel to New South Wales to conduct cases before the Court of Criminal Justice and the Supreme Court. Despite his ship being captured and plundered by an American privateer off the island of Madeira, he reached Australia in 1815 and was appointed his a magistrate of the colony. Admitted on 21 May 1824 as the first name on the Roll of Attorneys, Solicitors and Proctors, he subsequently became Government Solicitor and Deputy Judge Advocate. During his term as Crown solicitor, Garling enjoyed a large private practise and frequently appeared in Court on behalf of his clients.
This portrait was donated to the Supreme Court by Mrs Jennifer Wood and Mr Rodney Garling, fifth generation descendants of Frederick Garling.
“Ada Emily Evans (1872–1947) was the first Australian woman to attain a law degree and the first woman admitted to the Bar in New South Wales. Evans was eleven when her family moved from England to Australia and settled in Sydney. She finished her schooling at Sydney Girls' High and then undertook a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1895. Initially planning to become a teacher, she and her sister started a small private school at Summer Hill, until Evans had to give up the work for health reasons. With encouragement from her mother – who was from a family of lawyers – in 1899 Evans decided to return to university to study law, despite knowing that, as the law then stood, she wouldn't be able to practise after graduating. Nor for that matter, would the Dean of Sydney University's law school have tolerated a female student – so she applied (and was accepted) while he was on leave. He later told her that 'she did not have the physique for law and would find medicine more suitable'. Needless to say, Evans ignored this advice and graduated LL.B. in 1902. This achievement was reported on in a number of Australian newspapers, which also drily noted that 'the law a present in force does not permit ladies to practise the legal profession'. Accordingly, Evans' application to the Supreme Court for registration as a student-at-law was rejected – on the grounds of there being no precedent – as were her applications to be admitted to the Bar in New South Wales and in England.”
Rocco Fazzari (born 1959) is a Sydney-based mixed media artist. His practice includes digital illustration, painting and contemporary animated short form films. For the past 30 years he has published illustrations and political cartoons for Fairfax Media. Fazzari has twice won the Bald Archy Prize, including the inaugural prize in 1994.
The portrait The Hon. Jane Mathews is a photo collage created from headshots of women in the legal profession. A symbolic depiction of Jane Mathews (1940 – 2019), who was the first woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court in 1987 and laid the pathway for women in the legal profession.
A silver gelatin reproduction of King Street c.1900. It depicts the busy street before the development and modernisation that we are familiar with today.
The photograph taken 1935 depicts Sir Frederick Jordan, Chief Justice of New South Wales from 1934 to 1949. Prior to his appointment, Sir Frederick Jordan was a senior equity barrister but had not sat as judge. During his time as Chief Justice, the court underwent difficulties prompted by the Second World War, including a shortage of resources and manpower. Jordan’s administrative skills ensured the successful operation of the court through this period, and he earned the reputation as a Chief Justice whose pronouncements on the law were succinct, commanding and technically refined.
Cartoon by caricaturist Phil May (1864-1903) printed in the Bulletin, a satirical Australian magazine which ran from 1880 to 2008. Phil May defined the 20th century style of cartooning through is work for the Bulletin in the 1880s, creating a cartooning tradition in Australian which exist to this day.
The illustration is believed to depict English-born Australia judge Sir William Charles Windeyer (1834-1897). Appointed a temporary judge of the Supreme Court in 1879, he sat in common and criminal law, as judge in Divorce and as deputy-judge in the Vice-Admiralty Court. Despite his competent and careful judgements, he proved controversial in criminal cases. He was unrelenting in retribution and has a sympathy for victims of crime. Noteably, he sentenced nine young men to death in the Mount Rennie rape case, which caused public outcry.
Robert Hannaford (1944 -) is a prolific Australian artist responsible for painting the portraits of some of the country’s most notable figures. He has been recognised for his works with a plethora of awards and has been an Archibald Prize finalist on 26 occasions.
The Hon. Kenneth Handley (1935 - ) served as a Judge on the New South Wales Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal for 22 years. Prior to his appointment in 1990, he practised at the Sydney Bar for 30 years, appearing frequently in the High Court and the Privy Council. He retired from the Supreme Court in 2006 and from the Court of Appeal in 2012.
The original portrait by Hannaford hangs in Cranbrook School.
Oil on canvas by John Skinner Prout (1805-1876), depicting a scene at Port Jackson from Dawes Point. Prout was a British painter, writer and lithographer who worked in Australia. He undertook sketching tours around the districts of Sydney between 1840 and 1844 and held exhibitions on the technique of drawing and painting. His work Port Jackson from Dawes Point depicts British soldiers at the Dawes Point Battery in Sydney overlooking the harbour and a group of nearby Indigenous Australians.
This drawing by Franke Dunne (1898 – 1937) is a part of the Chau Chak Wing Museum collection. The profile portrait of Sir William Portus Cullen, seventh Chief Justice of NSW, was drawn during his appointment.
Sir William Cullen (1855-1935) was called to the New South Wales Bar in 1883 before taking high rank at the Equity Bar. He appeared before the Supreme Court of New South Wales and the High Court in a number of landmark cases including the Union Label case, eventually becoming a leading barrister in the High Court. In January 1910, he was appointed the seventh Chief Justice of New South Wales, and in March of the same year he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor. He had a successful judicial and political career in these roles, and was known for worthily upholding traditions of the court and administering the law with excellent knowledge and sound judgement.
Wood etching of Sir Frederick Darley (1830-1910), sixth Chief Justice of New South Wales and Lieutenant-Governor. Born in Ireland, he arrived in Sydney in 1862. He was admitted to the New South Wales Bar the same year and appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1878. In 1886 he was appointed Chief Justice of New South Wales, not before turning down the role once prior. He retired from the role in 1910.
In addition to his role in the judiciary, he served at Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales and was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council. He was a regular participant in debates, and introduced a number of progressive acts including reforms on marriages and divorce.
Photograph by Murray Harris as part of the 2023 Supreme Court collection. One of the courtrooms at the King Street Court Complex, the original Supreme Court before the construction of the Law Courts Building in Queen’s Square, which is still in use today. Court 5, King Street, is the only courtroom in Australia in which a gun was discharged. The bullet hole remains in the room to this day.
Photograph of the Law Courts Building captured at dusk from the corner of Macquarie Street and Prince Albert Road. Taken as a part of the bicentenary photographic series.
The building, which was completed in 1977, was designed by architect Peter Johnson of the firm McConnell Smith and Johnson. Constructed with an emphasis on making New South Wales courts more humane and accessible in their design, the Law Courts Building represents a modern step forward in New South Wales’ judicial history.
From the State Library of NSW collection, this photograph depicts an east-bound view of King Street from the corner of Elizabeth Street on a rainy day.
Named after Governor Phillip Gidley King, King Street runs through the Sydney central business district from the Wharf on Darling Harbour in the west to Queen’s Square in the East. At the time this photograph was taken, the street was home to notable colonial structures including Greenway Wing (King Street Court Complex) and St James Church, both of which can be seen to the right of the photograph, and remain structurally-intact and heritage-listed today.
Today, King Street has seen significant development with the construction of the Law Courts Building in Queens Square but it remains home to the legal profession in Sydney.
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC is the Governor of New South Wales. ‘It was only a relatively short time ago, in 1918, that the Women’s Legal Status Act was passed, allowing women to practice law in NSW,’ says Adelaide artist Tsering Hannaford.
In a distinguished law career spanning 43 years, Margaret Beazley has been a fierce advocate for women in the legal profession. Appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1989, in 1993 she became the first woman exclusively appointed as a judge of the Federal Court of Australia. She was the first woman to sit on the NSW Court of Appeal bench in 1996 and made legal history again in 2013 as its first female president.
‘This painting was a commissioned court portrait. The sittings took place over eight meetings in my studio. At the time, the dynamics of power between women and men in Australia’s parliamentary system were being interrogated in the media. There remains a mission for women in institutions where power is shifting. This portrait represents Her Excellency as a strong example for women in the field of law – a true trailblazer.’
Born in 1987, Hannaford is predominantly self-taught but has studied classical painting methods in New York, France and Adelaide. This is her seventh time as an Archibald Prize finalist.
Court sketch for a newspaper depicting the trial of William Dobel, recipient of the Archibald Prize in 1944. Following the conclusion of World War II, the people of Australia were engrossed by a four-day trial before the Supreme Court involving the award of the Archibald Prize to Dobell. Two finalists, Mary Edwards and Joseph Wolinski challenged the decision on the grounds that the portrait of Joshua Smith was not a portrait, but a caricature. The trial before Justice Roper featured two of the most talented barristers of the day, Garfield Barwick and Frank Kitto, both of whom became High Court judges. The Court upheld the decision of the Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, but the intense public scrutiny and pressure of the trial took an immense personal toll on Dobell.
One of the only surviving Associates class photos from the history of the Court, the work depicts the Class of 1937 and demonstrates the evolution of Associates from the 20th century to today.
Frederick Garling Jr. (1806 – 1873) worked as a customs official and was a prolific amateur watercolourist. Stationed at Port Jackson, he painted and documented vessels arriving in the harbour. Although, Garling Jr was not a classically-trained artist, his work remains an important insight into colonial life around Sydney.
He was the son of Frederick Garling (1775 – 1848), the first of two Crown solicitors appointed to the colony of New South Wales, on the recommendation of Jeffery Bent. With this new appointment, the Garling family departed from London on the Francis and Eliza in 1814. However, the ship was captured and plundered by an American privateer off the island of Madeira, delaying their arrival in Sydney and making Garling Sr. the second free-born solicitor to arrive in the colony.1 Soon after the Garling family’s arrival, Governor Macquarie appointed Garling Sr. as deputy judge advocate after the death of Ellis Bent, brother to Jeffery Bent, in November 1815.
Frederick Garling Jr. (1806 – 1873) was an English-born customs official and artist who worked in Australia from 1829 to 1859. He was an accomplished, self-taught amateur artist who specialised in maritime subjects. This watercolour painting depicting the view from Darlinghurst belongs to a Collection owned by the State Library of New South Wales.
Philip William May (1864 – 1903) was an English born cartoonist who worked in Sydney and Melbourne for three years in the late colonial period. During this period, he produced over 800 drawings for the Bulletin, which combined satire, sympathy and accurate detail of the contemporary political personalities and events.
The Divorce Extension bill was introduced to the Legislative Council in 1886 by Alfred Stephen, who was a strong advocate for extending grounds of divorce. The bill sought to extend grounds to cover desertion, habitual drunkenness, imprisonment for at least seven years, and assault. Although the bill was rejected, he reintroduced every session of the Legislative Council until it was passed in the session of 1891-1892 as the Divorce Amendment and Extension Act.
From the Fairfax Media Archives collection. Percy Edmund Creed Coleman (1892 – 1934) was a union organiser and politician. In the 1932 NSW State election he lost only by a narrow margin to Jack Lang. After his defeat, Coleman was admitted to the NSW Bar in 1933, but soon took up the post of NSW (federal) ALP President. He died suddenly in his car a year after this photograph was taken.
“Lady Mary Elizabeth Windeyer (1836–1912), women's rights campaigner, was born in England and emigrated to New South Wales with her family in 1839. Her father, an Anglican minister, was appointed to the Hunter Valley village of Hexham, close to Richard and Maria Windeyer's Tomago estate. In December 1857, Mary married the Windeyers' only child, William Charles, who encouraged her charitable work and political activities. Her energies were directed to causes relating to orphans and infant health, including the establishment of a foundling hospital (later the Ashfield Infants' Home) which subsequently became a home for destitute, unmarried mothers and their babies. Her friendship with Henry Parkes facilitated the passage of the State Children's Relief Act in 1881 and the establishment of a board (on which Mary served) to oversee the fostering of children from orphanages. Windeyer was also a leading campaigner on issues such as divorce law reform and increased employment opportunities for women. The inaugural president of the Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales, she was a founder of the Women's Hospital, Darlinghurst; co-founder of the Women's College of the University of Sydney; and prominent in the Women's Christian Temperance Union.
This delicately painted oval miniature portrait portrays Windeyer as a young woman wearing a prominent cross, a nod to her devout religious beliefs.”
James Jacob Spigelman (1946 - ), who served as Chief Justice of New South Wales from 1998 to 2011, pictured alongside Aunty Ali Golding, a grassroots Indigenous leader. Spigelman, who since his time as Chief Justice has sat on multiple Courts including in Fiji and Hong Kong, has helped to foster close relationships between the Australian judiciary and other judiciaries.
Aunty Ali Golding, a Biripi woman who grew up on an Aboriginal mission outside Taree, became one of the first Aboriginal education assistants at Cleveland High School in Queensland in the 1980s, and graduated from Nungaliya College in Darwin with a Diploma of Theology in 2004. She has made important contributions to national and international forums, and has convened with many dignitaries to deepen public understanding of Indigenous heritage and culture. She was appointed inaugural Elder in Residence in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of NSW in 2011, helping to support the training of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander doctors.
"One can look to formal, public portraits to locate somthing of that ‘masculine decision’, sternness eminence, and authoritative physical presence. Tom Roberts’s 1892 portrait of the recently-knighted judge – also gifted to the Gallery by William’s great-grandchildren in 2009 – for example, places him as the third in a trio of paintings referred to by Roberts as ‘Church, State and the Law’ (the other two subjects being Parkes and Cardinal Patrick Moran). But it is in the small portraits never intended for public view that his eminence is prefigured, and more specifically, where one can discern something of the strong sense of public duty that emerged from William’s private experience and circumstances, and the models set for him by his family.”
By Joanna Gilmour (National Portrait Gallery)
This daguerreotype is one of the earlier images taken of the Supreme Court and St James’ Church. Both the Court and the Church were constructed in the 1820s and form an integral part of the colonial hub of buildings on King Street. They remain culturally and historically significant today, and are state heritage listed.
Described in the City of Sydney Archives this images shows ‘a group of men chat on the corner of King and Phillip streets outside the Supreme Court Hotel. The hotel was opposite the old Supreme Court building on the corner of King and Elizabeth streets, now referred to as the King Street Courts. There's a painted advertisement on the wall of a three-storey building further along King Street: 'Paling's Pianos Are The Best 338 G'. Another building has a painted sign for 'Riley's Hotel'. The cupola of Hotel Australia can be seen in the distance.’
The photograph captures the celebrations in Sydney on 15 August 1945, the day imperial Japan surrendered in World War II. Soldiers and civilians alike, such as those pictured in this photograph, took to the streets of Sydney to celebrate the end of the war.
The commemorative postage stamp was issued in 1974 by Australia Post to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Australia’s Third Charter of Justice. Designed by Tom Thompson, the stamp depicts a wigged and robed judge at a bench under the Supreme Court of New South Wales Court of Arms.