Laurence Street

The Honourable Commander Sir Laurence Whistler Street AC, KCMG, KStJ, QC
14th Chief Justice of New South Wales
In office 28 June 1974 – 1 November 1988
Appointed by	Elizabeth II
Preceded by	Sir John Kerr
Succeeded by	Murray Gleeson
Lieutenant Governor of New South Wales
In office 28 June 1974 – 1 November 1988
Preceded by	Sir Leslie Herron
Succeeded by	Murray Gleeson
Personal details
Born	(1926-07-03) 3 July 1926 Sydney, New South Wales
Nationality	Australia
Mother	Lady Jessie Street
Father	Sir Kenneth Whistler Street
Relatives	Street family & House of Grey
Alma mater	Sydney Law School
Military service
Allegiance	Commonwealth of Australia
Service/branch	Royal Australian Navy Royal Australian Naval Reserve
Rank	Commander

Commander Sir Laurence Whistler Street, AC, KCMG, KStJ, QC (born 3 July 1926) is an Australian jurist; formerly the 2nd youngest Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and Lieutenant Governor of New South Wales. He is the third consecutive generation of the Street family to have served New South Wales in these offices. Street's appointment to the offices of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and Lieutenant Governor of New South Wales made the Street family the only family in Australian judicial appointments with three consecutive vice-regal appointments to their name.

Biography

Street attended the Cranbook School in Bellevue Hill. After serving with the Allied forces of World War Two in the Royal Australian Navy, he studied law at the University of Sydney. Street became a barrister at the New South Wales Bar in 1951. As a barrister he practised extensively in equity, commercial law and maritime law.

In 1965 he was appointed judge of the New South Wales Supreme Court in the Equity Division.^[1] In 1974, at age 47, Street became the state's second-youngest Chief Justice (Sir Alfred Stephen was 42 when appointed Chief Justice in 1844).^[2] In 1976 he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG).^[3] He retired in 1988^[1] and was appointed Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in 1989.^[4]

Since 1989 he has worked as a commercial mediator and an alternative dispute resolution consultant. This work has included 1,500 mediations, mainly involving major commercial disputes.^[1] In 2007 he branched out into criminal law, heading a review of a decision by the Queensland Director of Public Prosecution in the Chris Hurley case.^[5]

He is a member of several professional organisations, including an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Institute of Building.^[6] and an Honorary Member of the Society of Construction Law Australia. He is a patron of the Jessie Street National Women’s Library named in memory of his mother.

Street has said: "I've never felt constrained in my private life by the cast-iron requirements of society. I got divorced, I remarried, and had a second family of one. I have led a life that has not necessarily always conformed to the strict Victorian standards".^[7]

Family

Street's father Sir Kenneth Whistler Street was Chief Justice between 1950 and 1960, following in the footsteps of Sir Laurence's grandfather, Sir Philip Whistler Street.^[8] Members of the Street family have been prominent in politics and law, especially in Australia and the state of New South Wales, since the 19th Century. Various ancestral lines of the family were prominent throughout the second millennium in the United Kingdom as members of the House of Grey and the Berkeley family. The Street family is the only dynasty in Australian judicial appointments with three consecutive vice-regal appointments to their name.

The patriarch of the family’s legal tradition is Sir Thomas Street, an English Chief Justice and Baron of the Exchequer whose ancestors were well-established in Worcester, his father having been the mayor of the city. Thomas was Chief Justice for Brecknock, Glamorgan and Radnor from 1677 to 1681, and a Baron of the Exchequer from April 1681 to 1684. Sir Thomas had his children by Lady Penelope Berkeley, by whom the successive generations of the Streets descend from William the Conqueror, via the Berkeley family, whose ancestor Sir Maurice de Berkeley bore his progeny by Isabella FitzRoy (married 1247), daughter of Richard FitzRoy, a feudal baron of Chilham in Kent and a son of King John of England, who was in turn a great-great-grandson of the Conqueror.^[9] His mother Jessie Street was renowned for her extensive campaigning for human rights, particularly women's rights and Australian Aboriginal rights. She "masterminded the formation of the Aboriginal Rights Organisation, which led to the successful referendum held in 1967".^[10] Jessie's father Charles was the son of Mary Grey Mason, daughter of Mary Grey (1796—1863), who was in turn the first child of Sir George Grey, 1st Baronet. She was thus a direct descendant of Charles Grey, 1st Earl Grey, and ultimately a descendant of Anchetil de Greye, patriarch of the House of Grey, who was a military companion of William the Conqueror named in the Domesday Book.

By his first wife, Sir Laurence has 4 children: Kenneth, Sylvia, Alexander and Sarah; and by his second wife he has a fifth child: Jessie. His sister Philippa married the Australian Test cricketer and journalist Jack Fingleton.^[11]

References

External links

• Biography from official website