William Irvine (Australian politician)

Irvine was born in Newry in County Down, Ireland, into a Scottish-Presbyterian family; he was the nephew of Irish revolutionary John Mitchel. He was educated at the Royal School, Armagh and Trinity College, Dublin, graduating in law in 1879 before migrating to Melbourne, where he taught in Presbyterian schools and read law at Melbourne University, gaining a master's degree in arts and law. He soon became a leading Melbourne barrister.[1]

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 1902, he displaced the more liberal Alexander Peacock and became Premier and Treasurer, holding office until 1904, when he was succeeded by Thomas Bent.

Irvine's ministry was appointed on 10 June 1902:[2]

• Premier and Attorney-General : William Irvine
• Treasurer : William Shiels
• Solicitor-General : John Mark Davies
• Minister of Railways : Thomas Bent
• Minister of Education and Health : Robert Reid
• Minister of Public Works and Agriculture : John Taverner
• President of Board of Lands : Malcolm McKenzie
• Minister of Mines : Ewen Cameron
• Chief Secretary and Minister of Labour : John Murray

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; in Parliament he was known as "Iceberg Irvine."

Sir William Irvine, by Ernest Buckmaster, Art Gallery of New South Wales. Winner of the Archibald Prize in 1932

Recognising that he was unlikely to progress further in politics, Irvine accepted appointment as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria, the highest-ranking court in that state. He held the position from 1918 until 1935.

He was knighted KCMG 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.

• List of Judges of the Supreme Court of Victoria

• 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

• Supreme Court of Victoria Website
• "Irvine, Hon. Sir William Hill" . Thom's Irish Who's Who . Dublin: Alexander Thom and Son Ltd. 1923. p. 115  – via Wikisource.