Australian History/Biography
Book Details

Owen Dixon

New Edition

Philip Ayres

Foreword by Chief Justice J. J. Spigelman

The first biography ever written of Australia’s most eminent judge, Sir Owen Dixon (1886–1972).

Opinion

‘This biography explains the man, exposing, unwittingly, the flaws in his outlook, temperament and character, and recording his dazzling subsequent career as one of the greatest Chief Justices of Australia and one of the great Judges of the second half of the last century.’ (Frontline, 18 July 2003)

‘Owen Dixon is a work of profound scholarship, faithful to the legacy of a great man, and likely to attract a broad audience. . . By presenting that life forthrightly . . . Professor Ayres permits a reader to form an independent view and to respond to Sir Owen according to personal inclination.’ (23 Australian Bar Review, 2003)

About this Title

I think that Owen Dixon is splendid. I couldn’t put it down. The man and his method come through better than I thought was possible.
Sir Daryl Dawson, formerly Justice of the High Court of Australia

… a complete and sympathetic account of the full life and complex character of a great Australian. It is the biography that Dixon deserved.
Sir Harry Gibbs, formerly Chief Justice of Australia

This is the first biography ever published of Australia’s most eminent judge, Sir Owen Dixon (1886–1972).

In twentieth-century Australia, Dixon is a towering figure. He was regarded by Justice Felix Frankfurter of the US Supreme Court, and by Lord Simonds and other English Law Lords, as the greatest exponent of the common law of his generation anywhere in the world.

Dixon sat on the High Court from 1929 to 1964, and was Chief Justice from 1952 to 1964. He was also Minister to Washington (Ambassador) from 1942 to 1944, and a UN-appointed mediator between India and Pakistan over Kashmir from May to September 1950.

Through the use of Dixon’s private papers—including his private diaries, never previously published—Philip Ayres gives the text a strong sense of momentum, interiority and continuing drama. He focuses on the most interesting cases, and involves the reader closely in Dixon’s numerous trips to England and the USA, his activities in wartime Washington, his tour of the New Guinea fronts in 1943, and the extensive Himalayan travel and exploration involved in his mediation over Kashmir.

A narrative seamlessly integrating both the private and professional figure, Owen Dixon is a most important contribution on events at the commanding heights of politics and law in Australia across much of the twentieth century.

Table of Contents

1. Foundations
2. Young Barrister
3. Appearances before the Privy Council
4. Mature Barrister, Acting Justice
5. Dixon and the High Court (1)
6. Mission for Franklin
7. Wartime work in Australia
8. Minister to the United States (1)
9. New Guinea; Minister to the United States (2)
10 Dixon and the High Court (2)
11. United Nations Mediator, Kashmir
12. Dixon and the High Court (3)
13. Chief Justice
14. Final Years
15. The Measure of Dixon's Greatness

About the Author

Philip Ayres is Associate Professor of English Literature at Monash University and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, London. A meticulous researcher and experienced biographer, his previous books include Mawson: A Life, Malcolm Fraser: A Biography, and Classical Culture and the Idea of Rome in Eighteenth Century England.

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978-0-522-85426-8