Alfred Paxton Backhouse
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Alfred Paxton Backhouse (May 25, 1851 – 1 August, 1939) was an Australia district and supreme court judge. He presided over the trials of the 1892 Broken Hill miners' strikers, and was an active faculty member of the University of Sydney for over fifty years.[1]
Career
Backhouse was born in Ipswich, Suffolk in England in May 1851. One of seventeen children to Benjamin Backhouse, an architect, and Elizabeth Prentice, née Fuller. His middle name, Paxton, was selected to honor the creator of the Great Exhibition's Crystal Palace - Joseph Paxton - as it was on show during the year of his birth.[1] His parents, who were married on 20 August 1849, were forced by financial constraints to emigrate to Victoria, Australia in 1852 to make their living. The family moved back unsuccessfully to England in 1860 before then relocating first to Brisbane and then to Sydney.[1]
Schooled at Ipswich Grammar School and then the University of Sydney, Backhouse graduated in 1872 with a BA in law, followed by a Masters Degree in 1875.[1] After a brief period of teaching he passed the bar on 16 December 1876. He married on 4 February 1879, to Kate Marion. He became a crown prosecutor in 1878, district court judge in 1884 and, by 1892, a judge of the supreme court. He presided over the trials of the 1892 Broken Hill miners' strikers. [1]
Backhouse also served on the Senate of the University of Sydney from 1887 until 1939, though he retired from professional life in 1921.[1] He served as acting chancellor in 1892-94, 1896-99 and 1911-14, and died in Elizabeth Bay in 1939. He had no children.[1] Upon his death, the Sydney Morning Herald proclaimed him one of the "most widely-known and best-loved citizens, a distinguished figure in various spheres of life, and a rare personality."[2]
References
- Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g "Backhouse, Alfred Paxton". Australian Dictionary of Biography. VII. 1979.
- ^ "Backhouse, Alfred Paxton (1851–1939)". Obituaries Australia, reprinting the Sydney Morning Herald, 2 August 1939, p 12. 2 August 1939. Retrieved 27 October 2013.
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- Sources
- "Backhouse, Alfred Paxton". Australian Dictionary of Biography. VII. 1979.
- "Backhouse, Alfred Paxton (1851–1939)". Obituaries Australia, reprinting the Sydney Morning Herald, 2 August 1939, p 12. 2 August 1939.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - "Judge Backhouse". Barrier Minder. 9 January 1890.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - "Judge Backhouse and Mr. Heydon". Sydney Morning Herald. 25 December 1895.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help)