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Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs (6 August 1855 – 11 February 1948) was an Australian lawyer, politician, and judge who served as the ninth governor-general of Australia, in office from 1931 to 1936. He was both the first Australian-born and the first Jewish Governor-General of Australia. He had previously served on the High Court of Australia from 1906 to 1931, including as Chief Justice from 1930.
Isaacs was born in Melbourne and grew up in Yackandandah and Beechworth (in Victoria state). He began working as a schoolteacher at the age of 15, and later moved to Melbourne to work as a clerk and studied law part-time at the University of Melbourne. Isaacs was admitted to the bar in 1880, and soon became one of Melbourne's best-known barristers. He was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly in 1892, and subsequently served as Solicitor-General under James Patterson, and Attorney-General under George Turner and Alexander Peacock.
Isaacs entered the new federal parliament at the 1901 election, representing the Protectionist Party. He became Attorney-General of Australia in 1905, under Alfred Deakin, but the following year left politics in order to become a justice of the High Court. Isaacs was often in the minority in his early years on the court, particularly with regard to federalism, where he advocated the supremacy of the Commonwealth Government. The balance of the court eventually shifted, and he famously authored the majority opinion in the Engineers case of 1920, which abolished the reserved powers doctrine and fully established the paramountcy of Commonwealth law.
In 1930, Prime Minister James Scullin appointed Isaacs as Chief Justice, in succession to Sir Adrian Knox. Later that year, Scullin nominated Isaacs as his preferred choice for governor-general. The selection of an Australian (rather than the usual British aristocrat) was unprecedented and highly controversial. King George V was opposed to the idea but eventually consented, and Isaacs took office in January 1931 as the first Australian-born holder of the office. He was the first governor-general to live full-time at Yarralumla, and throughout his five-year term was popular among the public for his frugality during the Great Depression. Isaacs was Australia's first Jewish High Court Justice and the first Jewish Chief Justice of Australia, in addition to being the first Jewish Governor-General of Australia.
Isaacs had siblings born in Melbourne and Yackandandah: John A. Isaacs, who later became a solicitor and Victorian Member of Parliament, and sisters Carolyn and Hannah were all born in Yackandandah. A brother was born in Melbourne, and another sister was born in Yackandandah, but both died very young.Gordon (1963), pp.13,18 His first formal schooling was from sometime after 1860 at a small private establishment. At eight he won the school arithmetic prize, winning his photograph by the schoolmaster, who was also a photographer and Shoemaking. Yackandandah state school was opened in 1863 and Isaacs enrolled as a pupil. Here he excelled academically, particularly in arithmetic and languages, though he was a frequent truant, walking off to spend time in the nearby mining camps. To help Isaacs gain a better quality education, in 1867, his family moved to nearby Beechworth first enrolling him in the Common school then in the Beechworth Grammar School. He excelled at the Grammar School, becoming dux in his first year and winning many academic prizes. In his second year he was employed part-time as an assistant teacher at the school, and took up after school tutoring of fellow students. In September 1870, when Isaacs was just 15 years old, he passed his examination as a pupil teacher and taught at the school from then until 1873. Isaacs was next employed as an assistant teacher at the Beechworth State School, the successor to the Common school.
While employed at the State School, Isaacs had his first experience of the law, as an unsuccessful litigant in an 1875 County Court case. He disputed a payment arrangement with the headmaster of his school, resigning as part of the dispute. After returning to teaching, now back at the Grammar School, he expanded his interest in the law; reading law books and attending court sittings.
As a child Isaacs became fluent in Russian, which his parents spoke frequently, as well as English and some German. Isaacs later gained varying degrees of proficiency in Italian, French, Greek, Hindustani and Chinese.
Alfred Deakin appointed Isaacs Attorney-General in 1905 but he was a difficult colleague and in 1906 Deakin was keen to get him out of politics by appointing him to the High Court bench. He was the first serving minister to resign from the parliament.
Isaacs's appointment was announced in December 1930, and he was sworn in on 22 January 1931. He was the first Australian-born governor-general. Thus Isaacs agreed to a reduction in salary and conducted the office with great frugality. He gave up his official residences in Sydney and Melbourne and most official entertaining. Although he was sworn into office in the chamber of the Victorian Legislative Council in Melbourne, rather than in Parliament House in Canberra, he was the first governor-general to live permanently at Government House, Canberra. This was well-received with the public, as was Isaacs's image of rather austere dignity. Isaacs was promoted to a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George in April 1932. His term as governor-general concluded on 23 January 1936, and he retired to Victoria. In 1937, he was further honoured with the award of Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.
Isaacs opposed Zionism partly because he disliked nationalism of all kinds and saw Zionism as a form of Jewish national chauvinism—and partly because he saw the Zionist agitation in Palestine as disloyalty to the British Empire, to which he was devoted. Following the King David Hotel bombing in 1946, he wrote that "the honour of Jews throughout the world demands the renunciation of political Zionism".
Isaacs's main objections to Political Zionism were:
Isaacs said "the Zionist movement as a whole...now places its own unwarranted interpretation on the Balfour Declaration, and makes demands that are arousing the antagonism of the Muslim world of nearly 400 millions, thereby menacing the safety of our Empire, endangering world peace and imperiling some of the most sacred associations of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths. Besides their inherent injustice to others these demands would, I believe, seriously and detrimentally affect the general position of Jews throughout the world".
In his later years, Isaacs became embroiled in legal battles with Edna Davis, the wife of his brother John. He forced her out of the family home, reclaimed her wedding ring which she had pawned, and finally had her declared a vexatious litigant.
Isaacs died at his home in South Yarra, Victoria, in the early hours of 11 February 1948, at the age of 92. He was the last surviving member of Alfred Deakin's 1905–1906 Cabinet. The Commonwealth government accorded him a state funeral, held on 13 February, and he was buried in Melbourne General Cemetery after a synagogue service.
In 1973 Isaacs was honoured with an Australian postage stamp bearing his portrait.
Personal life
Isaacs married Deborah "Daisy" Jacobs, daughter of a tobacco merchant, at her parents' home in St Kilda on 18 July 1888. They had two daughters, born in 1890 and 1892; Marjorie Isaacs Cohen (who died in 1968 and was survived by a son, Thomas B. Cohen), and Nancy Isaacs Cullen. Lady Isaacs died at Bowral, New South Wales, in 1960.
Later life and death
Isaacs was 81 when his term ended in 1936, but his public life was far from over. He remained active in various causes for another decade and wrote frequently on matters of constitutional law. In the 1940s he became embroiled in controversy with the Jewish community both in Australia and internationally through his outspoken opposition to Zionism. His principal critic was Julius Stone.Julius Stone, "Stand up and be counted!" An open letter to the Rt Hon Sir Isaac Isaacs on the occasion of the 26th anniversary of the Jewish National Home, 1944. Isaacs was supported by Rabbi Jacob Danglow (1880–1962) and Harold Boas. Isaacs insisted that Judaism was a religious identity and not a national or ethnic one. He opposed the notion of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Isaacs said "political Zionism to which I am irrevocably opposed for the reasons which will be found clearly stated, must be sharply distinguished from religious and cultural Zionism to which I am strongly attached."
Honours
In May 1949 he was honoured with the naming of the Australian Electoral Division of Isaacs in the outer southern suburbs of Melbourne. At a redistribution in November 1968, the electorate was abolished and a separate Division of Isaacs was created in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. It exists to this day. The Canberra suburb of Isaacs was named after him in 1966.
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Categories: 1855 Births, 1948 Deaths, Governors-general Of Australia, Australian Members Of The Privy Council Of The United Kingdom, Chief Justices Of Australia, Justices Of The High Court Of Australia, Australian Knights Grand Cross Of The Order Of The Bath, Australian Federationists, Australian Monarchists, Members Of The Australian House Of Representatives, Members Of The Australian House Of Representatives For Indi, Protectionist Party Members Of The Parliament Of Australia, Attorneys-general Of Australia, Members Of The Victorian Legislative Assembly, Solicitors-general Of Victoria, Attorneys-general Of The Colony Of Victoria, Politicians From Melbourne, Australian King's Counsel, 20th-century King's Counsel, Australian People Of Polish-jewish Descent, Jewish Anti-zionism In Oceania, Jewish Australian Politicians, Melbourne Law School Alumni, Burials At Melbourne General Cemetery, Lawyers From The Colony Of Victoria, Politicians From The Colony Of Victoria, Attorneys-general Of Victoria, Australian Mps 1901–1903, Australian Mps 1903–1906
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