Exploring the life of Alfred Deakin

Hello and welcome to Gorey Things. I'm Michael Gorey and today I'll be talking about Alfred Deakin, Australia's second Prime Minister. I'll be looking at Alfred Deakin the man, more than the politician. My thanks go to Judith Brett for her excellent book, The Enigmatic Mr Deakin. Before we jump in, just for the record, Deakin was born in 1856 and died in 1919, sadly from a degenerative neurological condition, possibly dementia or Alzheimer's. The doctors at the time weren't able to diagnose it. He was Prime Minister three times between 1903 and 1910.

My interest in Deakin grew last year when I found myself in the vicinity of St Kilda Cemetery and I stepped inside for a look around, as you do. I came across Deakin's grave, unpretentious and alongside his family members.

Stepping back now to his early life, Deakin was named Alfred by his parents after the poet laureate Lord Tennyson. Deakin's parents were William and Sarah and he had a sister Catherine or Katie with whom he was very close. William and Sarah came from different backgrounds which may have prompted them to travel from Britain where the class system was firmly entrenched to the egalitarian colony of South Australia in 1850. William was a travelling grocer from England while Sarah came from a large prosperous tenant farm on the Wales-England border.

Digressing here for a moment, that was the same area that my great-great-grandparents came from. James Evans and Sarah Hardwick were married in 1849, about 15 miles from where Alfred Deakin's parents tied the knot and they came to Australia just a few months before them. It's relevant because William Deakin moved from Adelaide to Melbourne during the gold rush and operated a transport business to the Diggings. That's the same occupation as my James Evans at the time and it's very likely they would have known each other.

When Alfred was born in 1856, his parents were living in George Street, Fitzroy, and the stables for their coach business were in Gertrude Street, parts of Melbourne that I know very well. They had friends from the old country who were neighbours, the Bevan family, and I'll come back to them. The Deakins were well off and later they moved to a better home in Gore Street, Fitzroy.

They wanted a good education for Katie who was six years older than Alfred and she went to the prestigious Ladies' Academy at Kyneton between Melbourne and Bendigo and that's where it helps to have a coach business. After she had been there two years and when Alfred was only four, Sarah and William made the extraordinary decision to send him to join her there. He was the only male student among dozens of girls of all ages.

In her book, Judith Brett surmises it may have been for their health that both children went to a country boarding school. Melbourne in the 1850s was not a safe place for children. It had no sewerage system and infectious diseases were common. Some 1600 people died of infectious diseases in the city in 1860 and most of them were children. In 1864, the Deakins left the crowded dirty streets of Fitzroy and settled in leafy South Yarra, across the river, buying a half acre block in Adams Street the following year with Alfred then attending Melbourne Grammar School as a day student. That sets the scene for Alfred's emergence as a leader.

I've selected a few snippets from his life to share here. Coming back to the Bevan family, they also moved across the Yarra to Caulfield and they remained close to the Deakins. Their son Jimmy Bevan was a close friend of Alfred. Tragically, Jimmy's parents were drowned on a return voyage from England to Australia and the children went back to live with relatives in Britain. Jimmy Bevan became the first captain of the Welsh rugby team, quite an achievement.

Alfred Deakin always had a brilliant mind but he was not a brilliant student. He barely passed most of his subjects at Melbourne Grammar and he wasn't really interested in sports. Deakin matriculated in 1871 at the age of 15 and was unsure what to do with himself. He drifted rudderless for a year writing poetry and daydreaming. He became a vegetarian for a few years and developed an interest in spiritualism, which was all the rage. Towards the end of 1872, Deakin became a law student at Melbourne University, realising he had to make something of his life. I find this interesting because he took the same career path and walked the same corridors in that sandstone university as future Prime Ministers Robert Menzies and Julia Gillard.

While studying law, Deakin continued to write poetry, plays and essays, none of which were commercially successful, much to his disappointment. Deakin was an excellent orator and took up debating. His political views were forming along the liberal, progressive line. He supported equal education for women, scientific studies over classical studies, universal suffrage, cremation, the theory of evolution and temperance. He plunged into spiritualism, mixed with psychic mediums and attended séances.

The political situation in Victoria was marked by division between the conservative establishment, including squatters and large landowners on one side, with progressive types like Deakin, small business operators, small farmers and working men on the other. The conservatives controlled the upper house, which required a property franchise to vote. And there was constant conflict between the houses of Parliament. The Argus was the newspaper of choice for conservatives, whereas The Age, owned by David Syme, had more radical views. Deakin became a writer for The Age and a protégé of Syme, who supported his election to Parliament in 1879 at the age of 22.

In 1882, Deakin married Pattie Browne, who he had met through spiritual circles, and they made a home together in Walsh Street, South Yarra. Their daughter, Ivy, was born in July 1883.

While Deakin pursued his political ambitions and became a founding father of Federation, he also continued to dabble in the law. In April 1892, he defended the notorious serial murderer Frederick William Deeming, who was going by the name of Baron Swanston when he was arrested in Perth for the murder of his wife. Her decomposing body had been found under the floorboards in a rented house in the Melbourne suburb of Windsor. After the bodies of another wife and their four children were found similarly entombed in Liverpool, England, Deeming became an international sensation. The public was fascinated by the case, especially after Deeming claimed to be Jack the Ripper, which was almost certainly not true. He also claimed to be insane, and Deakin argued this in his unsuccessful defence. Deeming was hanged on 23 May that year, and a death mask was made.

This all gives a picture of Alfred Deakin, the man. One day I'll take a closer look at his politics and how he influenced the shape and development of modern Australia, including, for example, his interest in irrigation, which led to the opening up of agriculture in drylands of Victoria.

Deakin was a compassionate and sensitive man. It's a shame that memory loss afflicted his later years, and that he was unable to stay in politics during World War I, when he arguably would have become established as Australia's best Prime Minister.

Thanks for listening, and bye for now.