Preceded by New seat Name John Quick Resigned May 31, 1913 Occupation Journalist Succeeded by John Arthur | Spouse(s) Catherine Harris Nationality Cornish Australian Role Member of Parliament | |
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Born 14 April 1852
Cornwall, UK ( 1852-04-14 ) Alma mater University of Melbourne Died June 17, 1932, Camberwell, Melbourne, Australia Books The Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth Political party Protectionist Party, Independent politician, Commonwealth Liberal Party | ||
Education University of Melbourne | ||
Sir John Quick (22 April 1852 – 17 June 1932), was an English-born Australian politician and author who was the federal Member of Parliament for Bendigo from 1901 to 1913 and a leading delegate to the constitutional conventions of the 1890s.
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Early life
Sir John Quick was born on 22 April 1852 near St Ives in Cornwall, England, the son of John Sr and Mary Quick. His life changed when, at the age of 2, the family migrated to Australia in 1854, where John Sr, a farmer, began prospecting at the Bendigo goldfields. However, only a few months later, John Sr died of fever.
Quick was educated at a state school in Bendigo and at the age of 10 went to work in an iron foundry at Long Gully. Quick later worked as an assistant at the Bendigo Evening News, and then as a junior reporter at the Bendigo Independent. Here he gained skills in shorthand writing, and improved his general education.
In 1873, Quick moved to Melbourne, graduating from the University of Melbourne in 1877 with a Bachelor of Laws (LLB). Quick was called to the bar in June 1878, but instead continued as a journalist. Soon, he became the leading parliamentary reporter at The Age.
Victorian state politics
In 1880 Quick was elected the Member for Sandhurst (Bendigo) in the Victorian Legislative Assembly. He was a supporter of the radical liberal leader Sir Graham Berry. At this time, he resigned from The Age and returned to live in Bendigo, where he practised as a solicitor.
In 1882, Quick received a Doctor of Laws degree (LL.D) after an examination. In 1883, he married Catherine Harris. The couple did not have any children together.
Quick was successful in parliament, and in 1886 was offered a ministerial portfolio by the then Premier of Victoria Duncan Gillies. However, after an electoral redistribution, Quick lost his seat at the 1889 election.
Federation movement
John Quick had become interested in the Australian Federation movement while in the Victorian Parliament, and in the early 1890s successfully persuaded the Australian Natives' Association to advocate federation. In August 1893, Quick attended the first informal Constitutional Convention at Corowa, and proposed that a formal national convention should be established, with each of the six Australian colonies to be represented by ten elected delegates. The proposal was agreed on, and November 1893 Quick drafted a bill which formed the basis of the deliberation at formal convention held in 1897. Quick was elected to the Adelaide convention as second on the list of ten Victorian representatives.
When Federation was inaugurated on 1 January 1901, John Quick was knighted in recognition of his services to the federation movement. On the same day, Quick and Robert Garran published The Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth, which is widely regarded as one of the most authoritative works on the Australian Constitution.
Federal politics
At the federal election of 1901, Quick was elected to the Australian House of Representatives as Member for the Division of Bendigo. He was considered a member of the Protectionist Party. He was chairman of the first federal tariff commission, and was Postmaster-General in the third cabinet under Alfred Deakin in 1909, until 1910.
Quick was defeated in the 1913 election by the Australian Labor Party candidate, John Arthur. In 1922, he was appointed deputy president of the federal Arbitration Court, a position he held until his retirement on 25 March 1930.
Quick continued to be a prolific author. In 1904, along with Littleton Groom, Quick published The Judicial Power of the Commonwealth, and in 1919 published The Legislative Powers of the Commonwealth and the States of Australia. After retiring in 1930, he worked on a book which he intended to call The Book of Australian Authors, a bibliographical survey of various Australian authors, poets and playwrights. However, he died before he could complete the work. Professor E Morris Miller continued his work, and the book was published in 1940 as Australian Literature from its beginnings to 1935.
In 1913 Quick became the founding President of the first Bendigo Cornish Association.
Quick died on 17 June 1932, aged 80.