H. V. Evatt

Herbert Vere "Doc" Evatt, QC, PC, KStJ (30 April 1894 – 2 November 1965) was an Australian politician and judge.Evatt was appointed Attorney-General and Minister for External Affairs, positions he held under Curtin and Ben Chifley until the government's defeat at the 1949 federal election.He faced three leadership spills before being convinced to retire from politics in 1960 and accept the post of Chief Justice of New South Wales.He was the fifth of eight sons born to Jane Sophia (known as "Jeanie") and John Ashmore Hamilton Evatt; two of his older brothers died in infancy.He arrived in Australia at the age of 16, and eventually settled in Morpeth, where in 1882 he married Jeanie Gray, the daughter of a marine engineer from Sydney.He attended the school from 1905 to 1911, in his final year serving as head prefect and captain of the cricket and rugby union teams.[8] He was also the Editor of Hermes, the annual student literary journal, was a Tutor at St Andrew's College, and the President of the University of Sydney Union from 1916–17.[7][12] In 1930 the Labor government headed by James Scullin appointed Evatt as the youngest-ever justice of the High Court of Australia.Regarded by some as a brilliant and innovative judge, he delivered a number of minority judgments, several of which were adopted by High Court majorities decades later.[14] Evatt was one of six justices of the High Court who had served in the Parliament of New South Wales, along with Edmund Barton, Richard O'Connor, Adrian Knox, Albert Piddington and Edward McTiernan.[15] In 1940, Evatt resigned from the High Court to return to politics, and was elected federal MP for the Sydney seat of Barton in the House of Representatives.He put forward convincing arguments as to the need to re-establish sporting relations and the financial benefits of the tour and the MCC agreed to the 1946–47 Ashes series.Evatt, opposing resolutions which could have led to more Asian immigration to Australia, told the Chinese delegation at San Francisco: You have always insisted on the right to determine the composition of your own people.In the ensuing Royal Commission on Espionage, documents tendered were alleged to provide evidence of an extensive Soviet spy ring in Australia, and named (among many others), two of Evatt's staff members.His cross-examination of the key ASIO operative Michael Bialoguski transformed the commission's hearings and greatly perturbed the government.[citation needed] Evatt's loss of the election and his belief that Menzies had conspired with ASIO to contrive Petrov's defection led to criticism within the Labor Party of his decision to appear before the Royal Commission.Pat Fiske and David McKnight, in their 1995 television documentary Doc, attributed what they described as Evatt's "deteriorating mental functioning" to arteriosclerosis.