Edward St John
Encyclopedia
Edward Henry St John QC
(pr: Sinj'n) (15 August 191624 October 1994) was a prominent Australia
n barrister
, anti-nuclear activist and Liberal
politician in the 1960s. His political career came to a controversial end after he criticised the Prime Minister
John Gorton
. His book A Time to Speak was an account of his eventful three years in politics from 1966 to 1969. Justice Michael Kirby described St John as a "contradictory, restless, reforming spirit".
, Edward St John was the son of a Church of England canon
and a descendant of many famous St Johns, including Ambrose St John, who converted to Rome
and was a close friend of Cardinal John Henry Newman, and Oliver St John
, a statesman and judge who challenged the legality of Charles I
's Ship Money
tax. Oliver St John was twice married to relations of Oliver Cromwell
. See Burke's or Debrett's Peerage under St John of Bletso.
Edward St John was educated at state schools before attending the University of Sydney
.
and the New Guinea campaign
between 1940 and 1945 during World War II
. Upon his return he was a law lecturer at the University of Sydney. He was also President of the Australian Section of the International Commission of Jurists
. In 1966 St John was elected to the House of Representatives
as the Liberal
member for the safe seat of Warringah
.
As a barrister, St John successfully defended Richard Walsh, editor of the satirical magazine Oz
at the first Oz obscenity trial in 1964. Of his last two major cases he successfully defended Thomas and Alexander Barton, two company directors charged with a series of alleged offences in which Barton company shareholders lost millions of dollars. The prosecutor for the NSW Corporate Affairs Commission was Tom Hughes QC, a former Liberal Attorney-General. The other was a major action arising out of the Chelmsford Hospital scandal.
before the House of Representatives
on 16 May 1967 was remarkable for not being, as is usual, a paean to the beauties of the electorate, the civic pride of its inhabitants and the aims of its new representative. Instead, he criticised, in forthright terms, the conduct and findings of the Royal Commission
into the Voyager disaster
, calling for a second inquiry. Even more remarkably, and against all precedent, he was interrupted by an interjection from his own leader, the Prime Minister
Harold Holt
. He had effectively sacrificed his parliamentary career, but there was a second Royal Commission, largely vindicating his stand.
In 1969 he embarrassed his Party by criticising the behaviour of Prime Minister John Gorton
, claiming that he had offended the American Embassy by turning up there, after a late press-gallery dinner, with the 19 year-old daughter of a Labor
Senator
. Labor Senator Lionel Murphy
sent a message to the House suggesting that St John's comments were an inappropriate breach of the Prime Minister's privacy. St John claimed that he was not the only one dissatisfied with Gorton, but no other party members supported him. Gorton's wife Bettina
supported her husband by sending a poem to the press gallery, referring to St John as "the member with the Serpent's tongue". St John resigned from the Liberal Party to sit as an independent
but was defeated at the 1969 election
by the Liberal candidate. After his defeat, he returned to his law practice as a barrister but wrote a book A Time to Speak (the title was taken from the Book of Ecclesiastes) about these turbulent years It was published by Sun Books, Melbourne in 1969.
. Despite this conservatism, he set up the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa for victims of apartheid; and his election to parliament had been firmly opposed by the Australian League of Rights
.
St John helped establish global principles of the rule of law
at successive meetings of the International Commission of Jurists
in Bangkok
, Rio de Janeiro
and New Delhi
, a non-governmental international human rights organisation. As an environmentalist he led the campaign against the flooding of Lake Pedder
which was dammed in 1972. After leaving politics for himself he supported Peter Garrett
's Nuclear Disarmament Party candidature for the Australian Senate
in 1984, which almost succeeded.
Over the last decade of his life he campaigned for nuclear disarmament
and peace. In 1984 he and the poet Les Murray
jointly composed "The Universal Prayer for Peace: A Prayer for the Nuclear Age". A founding member of Australian Lawyers for Nuclear Disarmament in the same year, he was instrumental in its affiliation to the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms. In the mid-1980s he co-founded and chaired the Australian Peace Foundation. Inspired by his New Zealand
colleague, Harold Evans
he was a leading supporter of the World Court Project (WCP) through which as his last quest, was to ask the International Court of Justice
to provide an advisory opinion on the criminality of nuclear weapons.
From 1985 St. John began writing his major work, an anti-nuclear book Judgment at Hiroshima, with some research assistance from Elizabeth Handsley but died before publication. A Japanese
edition appeared in 1995 to coincide with the 50th anniversaries of the atomic destruction of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki
. His widow Valerie released the English
version two years later with copies distributed to research libraries in Australia and overseas.
and Colette. Madeleine became a successful yet reclusive writer who was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
. His second wife was Valerie Winslow, who died in 2010. They had three sons: Oliver, Edward and Patrick.
. The address was given by Justice Michael Kirby, who recalled St John's relationship to Oliver Cromwell
:
An obituary 'A crusader who put his party second' was published in the SMH on 26 October 1994. An obituary 'Maverick Liberal caused a storm' by Mungo MacCallum was published in The Australian on 1 November 1994, p.16.
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
(pr: Sinj'n) (15 August 191624 October 1994) was a prominent Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
, anti-nuclear activist and Liberal
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
politician in the 1960s. His political career came to a controversial end after he criticised the Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Australia
The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
John Gorton
John Gorton
Sir John Grey Gorton, GCMG, AC, CH , Australian politician, was the 19th Prime Minister of Australia.-Early life:...
. His book A Time to Speak was an account of his eventful three years in politics from 1966 to 1969. Justice Michael Kirby described St John as a "contradictory, restless, reforming spirit".
Early life
Born in Boggabri, New South WalesBoggabri, New South Wales
Boggabri is a small town on the Kamilaroi Highway in north-western New South Wales, Australia in Narrabri Shire, between Gunnedah and Narrabri. In 2006, the town had a population of 901 people....
, Edward St John was the son of a Church of England canon
Canon (priest)
A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....
and a descendant of many famous St Johns, including Ambrose St John, who converted to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
and was a close friend of Cardinal John Henry Newman, and Oliver St John
Oliver St John
Sir Oliver St John , was an English judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1653. He supported the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War.- Early life :...
, a statesman and judge who challenged the legality of Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
's Ship Money
Ship money
Ship money refers to a tax that Charles I of England tried to levy without the consent of Parliament. This tax, which was only applied to coastal towns during a time of war, was intended to offset the cost of defending that part of the coast, and could be paid in actual ships or the equivalent value...
tax. Oliver St John was twice married to relations of Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
. See Burke's or Debrett's Peerage under St John of Bletso.
Edward St John was educated at state schools before attending the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
.
Career
He became a barrister in 1940 and served in the 2nd AIF in Australia, the Middle EastMiddle East Theatre of World War II
The Middle East Theatre of World War II is defined largely by reference to the British Middle East Command, which controlled Allied forces in both Southwest Asia and eastern North Africa...
and the New Guinea campaign
New Guinea campaign
The New Guinea campaign was one of the major military campaigns of World War II.Before the war, the island of New Guinea was split between:...
between 1940 and 1945 during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Upon his return he was a law lecturer at the University of Sydney. He was also President of the Australian Section of the International Commission of Jurists
International Commission of Jurists
The International Commission of Jurists is an international human rights non-governmental organization. The Commission itself is a standing group of 60 eminent jurists , including members of the senior judiciary in Australia, Canada, and South Africa and the former UN High Commissioner for Human...
. In 1966 St John was elected to the House of Representatives
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....
as the Liberal
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
member for the safe seat of Warringah
Division of Warringah
The Division of Warringah is an Australian Electoral Division in the state of New South Wales. It is located in the Northern Beaches region of Sydney, and covers most of the land between Middle Harbour and the Pacific Ocean. It extends from Port Jackson in the south to the suburb of Dee Why in the...
.
As a barrister, St John successfully defended Richard Walsh, editor of the satirical magazine Oz
Oz (magazine)
Oz was first published as a satirical humour magazine between 1963 and 1969 in Sydney, Australia and, in its second and better known incarnation, became a "psychedelic hippy" magazine from 1967 to 1973 in London...
at the first Oz obscenity trial in 1964. Of his last two major cases he successfully defended Thomas and Alexander Barton, two company directors charged with a series of alleged offences in which Barton company shareholders lost millions of dollars. The prosecutor for the NSW Corporate Affairs Commission was Tom Hughes QC, a former Liberal Attorney-General. The other was a major action arising out of the Chelmsford Hospital scandal.
Controversies
His maiden speechMaiden speech
A maiden speech is the first speech given by a newly elected or appointed member of a legislature or parliament.Traditions surrounding maiden speeches vary from country to country...
before the House of Representatives
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....
on 16 May 1967 was remarkable for not being, as is usual, a paean to the beauties of the electorate, the civic pride of its inhabitants and the aims of its new representative. Instead, he criticised, in forthright terms, the conduct and findings of the Royal Commission
Royal Commission
In Commonwealth realms and other monarchies a Royal Commission is a major ad-hoc formal public inquiry into a defined issue. They have been held in various countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Saudi Arabia...
into the Voyager disaster
HMAS Voyager (D04)
HMAS Voyager was a Daring class destroyer of the Royal Australian Navy , that was lost in a collision in 1964.Constructed between 1949 and 1957, Voyager was the first ship of her class to enter Australian service, and the first all-welded ship to be built in Australia...
, calling for a second inquiry. Even more remarkably, and against all precedent, he was interrupted by an interjection from his own leader, the Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Australia
The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
Harold Holt
Harold Holt
Harold Edward Holt, CH was an Australian politician and the 17th Prime Minister of Australia.His term as Prime Minister was brought to an early and dramatic end in December 1967 when he disappeared while swimming at Cheviot Beach near Portsea, Victoria, and was presumed drowned.Holt spent 32 years...
. He had effectively sacrificed his parliamentary career, but there was a second Royal Commission, largely vindicating his stand.
In 1969 he embarrassed his Party by criticising the behaviour of Prime Minister John Gorton
John Gorton
Sir John Grey Gorton, GCMG, AC, CH , Australian politician, was the 19th Prime Minister of Australia.-Early life:...
, claiming that he had offended the American Embassy by turning up there, after a late press-gallery dinner, with the 19 year-old daughter of a Labor
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
Senator
Australian Senate
The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. Senators are popularly elected under a system of proportional representation. Senators are elected for a term that is usually six years; after a double dissolution, however,...
. Labor Senator Lionel Murphy
Lionel Murphy
Lionel Keith Murphy, QC was an Australian politician and jurist who served as Attorney-General in the government of Gough Whitlam and as a Justice of the High Court of Australia from 1975 until his death.- Personal life :...
sent a message to the House suggesting that St John's comments were an inappropriate breach of the Prime Minister's privacy. St John claimed that he was not the only one dissatisfied with Gorton, but no other party members supported him. Gorton's wife Bettina
Bettina Gorton
Bettina Gorton, Lady Gorton was the American-born wife of John Gorton, Prime Minister of Australia 1968-71.Bettina Edith Brown was born in Bangor, Maine, USA, in about 1915. Her father Arthur A. Brown was the president of an American bank in Cuba. He died when she was two years old and her...
supported her husband by sending a poem to the press gallery, referring to St John as "the member with the Serpent's tongue". St John resigned from the Liberal Party to sit as an independent
Independent (politician)
In politics, an independent or non-party politician is an individual not affiliated to any political party. Independents may hold a centrist viewpoint between those of major political parties, a viewpoint more extreme than any major party, or they may have a viewpoint based on issues that they do...
but was defeated at the 1969 election
Australian federal election, 1969
Federal elections were held in Australia on 25 October 1969. All 125 seats in the House of Representatives were up for election. The incumbent Liberal Party of Australia led by Prime Minister of Australia John Gorton with coalition partner the Country Party led by John McEwen defeated the Australian...
by the Liberal candidate. After his defeat, he returned to his law practice as a barrister but wrote a book A Time to Speak (the title was taken from the Book of Ecclesiastes) about these turbulent years It was published by Sun Books, Melbourne in 1969.
Activism
He was a member of the conservative Association of Cultural Freedom and a friend of activist journalist B. A. SantamariaB. A. Santamaria
Bartholomew Augustine "B. A." Santamaria, otherwise 'Bob' , was an Australian political activist and journalist and one of the most influential political figures in 20th century Australian history...
. Despite this conservatism, he set up the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa for victims of apartheid; and his election to parliament had been firmly opposed by the Australian League of Rights
Australian League of Rights
The Australian League of Rights is a long-lived far right and anti-semitic political organisation in Australia founded by Eric Butler with its basis in the economic theory of Social Credit expounded by C. H. Douglas. It describes itself as upholding the virtues of freedom...
.
St John helped establish global principles of the rule of law
Rule of law
The rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...
at successive meetings of the International Commission of Jurists
International Commission of Jurists
The International Commission of Jurists is an international human rights non-governmental organization. The Commission itself is a standing group of 60 eminent jurists , including members of the senior judiciary in Australia, Canada, and South Africa and the former UN High Commissioner for Human...
in Bangkok
Bangkok
Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...
, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
and New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
, a non-governmental international human rights organisation. As an environmentalist he led the campaign against the flooding of Lake Pedder
Lake Pedder
Lake Pedder was once a natural lake, located in the southwest of Tasmania, Australia but the name is now used in an official sense to refer to the much larger artificial impoundment and diversion lake formed when the original lake was expanded by damming in 1972 by the Hydro Electric Commission of...
which was dammed in 1972. After leaving politics for himself he supported Peter Garrett
Peter Garrett
Peter Robert Garrett, AM, MP , is an Australian musician, environmentalist, activist and politician.Garrett was lead singer of the Australian rock band Midnight Oil from 1973 until its disbanding in 2002...
's Nuclear Disarmament Party candidature for the Australian Senate
Australian Senate
The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. Senators are popularly elected under a system of proportional representation. Senators are elected for a term that is usually six years; after a double dissolution, however,...
in 1984, which almost succeeded.
Over the last decade of his life he campaigned for nuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament refers to both the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to the end state of a nuclear-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated....
and peace. In 1984 he and the poet Les Murray
Les Murray (poet)
Leslie Allan Murray, AO , known as Les Murray, is an Australian poet, anthologist and critic. His career spans over forty years, and he has published nearly 30 volumes of poetry, as well as two verse novels and collections of his prose writings...
jointly composed "The Universal Prayer for Peace: A Prayer for the Nuclear Age". A founding member of Australian Lawyers for Nuclear Disarmament in the same year, he was instrumental in its affiliation to the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms. In the mid-1980s he co-founded and chaired the Australian Peace Foundation. Inspired by his New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
colleague, Harold Evans
Harold Evans
Sir Harold Matthew Evans is a British-born journalist and writer who was editor of The Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981. He has written various books on history and journalism...
he was a leading supporter of the World Court Project (WCP) through which as his last quest, was to ask the International Court of Justice
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. It is based in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands...
to provide an advisory opinion on the criminality of nuclear weapons.
From 1985 St. John began writing his major work, an anti-nuclear book Judgment at Hiroshima, with some research assistance from Elizabeth Handsley but died before publication. A Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
edition appeared in 1995 to coincide with the 50th anniversaries of the atomic destruction of Hiroshima
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
and Nagasaki
Nagasaki
is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Nagasaki was founded by the Portuguese in the second half of the 16th century on the site of a small fishing village, formerly part of Nishisonogi District...
. His widow Valerie released the English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
version two years later with copies distributed to research libraries in Australia and overseas.
Personal life
He first married Sylvette Cargher, who died in 1954. They had two daughters: MadeleineMadeleine St John
Madeleine St John was an Australian writer, the first Australian woman to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction .-Biography:...
and Colette. Madeleine became a successful yet reclusive writer who was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
Man Booker Prize
The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe. The winner of the Man Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and...
. His second wife was Valerie Winslow, who died in 2010. They had three sons: Oliver, Edward and Patrick.
Death
Edward St John died 24 October 1994. His funeral was held in St Luke's Anglican Church, MosmanMosman, New South Wales
Mosman is a suburb on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Mosman is located 8 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the Municipality of Mosman.-Localities:In February...
. The address was given by Justice Michael Kirby, who recalled St John's relationship to Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
:
In his blood, as he told the House of Representatives in 1967, were the genes of Oliver St John who defended John Hampden when he refused to pay ship money to King Charles I. Oliver married into the Cromwell family.
An obituary 'A crusader who put his party second' was published in the SMH on 26 October 1994. An obituary 'Maverick Liberal caused a storm' by Mungo MacCallum was published in The Australian on 1 November 1994, p.16.