Charles Gavan Duffy

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Charles Gavan Duffy

Sir Charles Gavan Duffy KCMG (12 April 1816 - 9 February 1903) Irish nationalist and Australian colonial politician, was the 8th Premier of Victoria and one of the most colourful figures in Victorian political history. Duffy was born in Dublin Street, Monaghan Town, County Monaghan, Ireland, the son of a Catholic shopkeeper.

He was educated at St Malachy's College in Belfast and admitted to the Irish bar in 1845. In 1842 he married Emily McLaughlin, Emily died in 1845. He married Susan Hughes in 1846, with whom he had six children.

Duffy became a leading figure in Irish literary circles. He edited Ballad Poetry of Ireland (1843) and other works on Irish literature.

Duffy was active in Irish Nationalist politics and was one of the leaders of the Young Ireland group, and a founder of the The Nation newspaper. He and Thomas Davis organised mass meetings across Ireland to demand the repeal of the Act of Union between Britain and Ireland. As a result of his activities he was arrested and convicted of seditious conspiracy in 1844, but was released after an appeal to the House of Lords.

In August 1850 Duffy formed the Tenant Right League to bring about reforms in the Irish land system and protects tenats' rights.

In 1852 Duffy was elected to the House of Commons for New Ross. In 1856, despairing of the prospects for Irish independence, he resigned from the House of Commons and emigrated with his family to Australia.

After being feted in Sydney and Melbourne Duffy settled in Victoria. In early colonial Victoria, Duffy, with his political and literary reputation, was an exotic and romantic figure, particularly for the colony's large Irish community. For this reason he was feared and hated by many in the English and Scottish Protestant establishment, especially when he indicated his intention of entering Victorian politics.

A public appeal was held to enable him to buy the freehold property necessary to stand for the colonial parliament. He was immediately elected to the Legislative Assembly for Villiers and Heytesbury in the Western District. He later sat for Dalhousie and for North Gippsland.

Duffy was Commissioner for Public Works in 1857, and was President of the Board of Land and Works and Commissioner for Crown Lands and Survey in the first two governments of John O'Shanassy from 1858 - 1859, and from 1861 - 1863.

Like other radicals, he regarded unlocking the colony's lands from the grip of the squatter class as his main priority, but his 1862 lands bill was amended into ineffectiveness by the Legislative Council. The historian Don Garden writes: "Unfortunately Duffy's dreams were on a higher plane than his practical skills as a legislator and the morals of those opposed to him."

In 1871 Duffy led the opposition to Premier James McCulloch's plan to introduce a land tax, on the grounds that it unfairly penalised small farmers. When McCulloch's government was defeated on this issue, Duffy became Premier and Chief Secretary (June 1871 to June 1872). Victoria's finances were in a poor state and he was forced to introduce a tariff bill to provide government revenue, despite his adherence to British free trade principles.

An Irish Catholic Premier was very unpopular with the Protestant majority in the colony, and Duffy was accused of favouring Catholics in government appointments. in June 1872 his government was defeated in the Assembly on a confidence motion allegedly motivated by sectarianism. He resigned the leadership of the liberal party to Graham Berry.

When Berry became Premier in 1877 he made Duffy Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, a post he held without much enthusiasm until 1880, when he quit politics and retired to the south of France.

He was knighted in 1873 and made KCMG in 1877. He married for a third time in Paris in 1881, to Louise Hall, and had four more children in his 70s. One of his sons, John Gavan Duffy, was a Victorian politician between 1874 and 1904. Another, Frank Gavan Duffy, was Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia 1931 - 1935.

Yet another son, George Gavan Duffy (born 1882) was an Irish politician and later (from 1936) a judge of the Irish High Court, becoming its President from 1946 until his death in 1951.

Sir Charles Gavan Duffy died in Nice in 1903, aged 86.

(Note: Both Charles and Frank Gavan Duffy are sometimes referred to as though their surname was Gavan Duffy. There is no doubt that the family surname was Duffy, but the family tradition of giving all males the middle name Gavan has led to some confusion about this.)

[edit] External link

Poetry of Ireland, with references to Duffy

[edit] References

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