Edmund Barton

"'With the inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia, for the first time in history, we have a continent for a nation and a nation for a continent.' - Sir Edmund Barton" Sir Edmund Barton M.A., GCMG GCRS KC PC (18, January, 1849 - 7, January, 1920) was a British author, diplomat, judge, lawyer, politician and statesman. During his career, Barton served as a Member of Parliament, the twenty-first Attorney General of the State of New South Wales, first Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, first Prime Minister of the Dominion of Australia and Justice of the Supreme Court of the Dominion of Australia.

Barton's administration conglomerated the colonies of British Australasia as the Dominion of Australia, deployed naval and military forces to China and Southern Africa during the Boxer Rebellion and the Second Boer War in service of Queen Victoria & King Edward VII, enshrined the Constitution of the Dominion of Australia, established the Royal Australian Army and the Supreme Court of the Dominion of Australia, funded the expansion of the Royal British Navy and instituted a system of racial segregation and immigration restrictions which prohibited non-Britons from migrating to the Dominion of Australia.

Barton personally drafted the Pacific Labourers Act of 1901, prohibiting the employment of foreign labourers, founded the Supreme Court of Australia, lead the delegation for the Dominion of Australia during the Anglo-Yamato Treaty Conference of 1902 and the Imperial Conference of 1902, served as the delegate for New South Wales at the Confederation Conferences for British Australasia and signed the Anglo-Yamato Alliance Treaty of 1902, establishing an alliance between the empires which would last until 1923.

Trivia

 * Barton was multilingual and fluent in English, Greek and Latin.