Edmund Barton
Sir Edmund "Toby" Barton, was an Australian politician and judge who served as the first Prime Minister of Australia, in office from 1901 to 1903. He resigned to become a founding member of the High Court of Australia, where he served until his death. Barton was an early supporter of the federation of the Australian colonies, after the retirement of Henry Parkes came to be seen as the leader of the federation movement in New South Wales, he was a delegate to the constitutional conventions, playing a key role in the drafting of a national constitution, was one of the lead campaigners for federation in the subsequent referendums. In late 1900, despite the initial "Hopetoun Blunder", Barton was commissioned to form a caretaker government as Australia's first prime minister, his term began on 1 the date on which federation occurred. At the first federal elections in March 1901, Barton and the Protectionists won the most seats, but were well short of a majority, he was able to continue on as a prime minister by forming an alliance with the fledgling Labor Party, which held the balance of power.
The Barton Government established a number of new national institutions, including the Australian Defence Force and the Commonwealth Public Service. It introduced nation-wide women's suffrage, laid the foundations of the White Australia policy with the Immigration Restriction Act 1901. Barton left politics in 1903 to become one of the three founding members of the High Court, which his government had created, he was succeeded as prime minister by Alfred Deakin. On the court, Barton was able to shape the judicial interpretation of the constitution he had helped write. Although he served 16 years on the High Court and less than three as prime minister, he is chiefly remembered for his political career. Barton was born on 18 January 1849 in Glebe, New South Wales, he was the eleventh of twelve children born to William Barton. He had four brothers, including the writer George Burnett Barton. Three of his siblings died during his childhood, his given name had not been used in the family, may have been in honour of the deceased explorer Edmund Kennedy.
Barton's parents were both born in London, although his father's family was from Devon. They arrived in the Colony of New South Wales in 1827, all but two of their children were born in Australia. William Barton worked variously as an accountant, bazaar proprietor and real estate agent, his business ventures were not always successful, he went bankrupt on one occasion. Barton spent his early years in Glebe, but in 1851 the family moved into the inner city, living on Cumberland Street in The Rocks, he had a comfortable upbringing, although his father faced financial difficulties on a number of occasions. To support the family during those periods, his mother ran a boarding school for girls, his parents were both literate, his mother in particular "provided much of the direction and encouragement for Edmund's impressive academic achievement". Barton began his formal education at, he attended Sydney Grammar School as one of the first students after the school's opening in 1857. One of his close friends in his youth was Richard O'Connor, who would join him on the High Court.
Barton was the dux and school captain at Sydney Grammar in 1863 and 1864. He matriculated to the University of Sydney in 1865, aged 16, was awarded a special prize by the university senate. At university, Barton specialised in classics but studied English literature, mathematics and French, he became fluent in Ancient Greek and Latin, retained a command of both in life. A new professor, Charles Badham, arrived in 1867 and was a "profound influence". Barton won scholarships in his third years, he graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1868 with first-class honours, was awarded the equivalent of the University Medal as well as a prize of ₤20. He proceeded to Master of Arts by application in 1870. Barton was a member of the Sydney University Cricket Club and a founding member of the Sydney Rowing Club. On a cricketing trip to Newcastle in 1870 he met Jane Mason Ross, whom he married in 1877. In 1879, Barton umpired a cricket match at Sydney Cricket Ground between New South Wales and an English touring side captained by Lord Harris.
After a controversial decision by Barton's colleague George Coulthard against the home side, the crowd spilled onto the pitch and assaulted some of the English players, leading to international cricket's first riot. The publicity that attended the young Barton's presence of mind in defusing that situation reputedly helped him take his first step towards becoming Australia's first prime minister, winning a state lower house seat that year. In 1876 Barton stood for the Legislative Assembly in the poll of the graduates of the University of Sydney, but was beaten by William Charles Windeyer 49 votes to 43, he was defeated again for the same seat in 1877, but won in August 1879. When it was abolished in 1880, he became the member for Wellington, from November 1880 to 1882, East Sydney, from November 1882 to January 1887. At this stage he considered it "almost unnecessary" to point out his support for free trade. In 1882, he became Speaker of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, he was aged only 33, was the youngest person to have been chosen presiding officer of any Australian legislative chamber.
In 1884 he was elected President of the University of Sydney Union. In 1887, he was appointed to the Legislative Council at the instigation of Sir Henry Parkes. In January 1889, he agreed to being appointed
Queen's Counsel
A Queen's Counsel, or King's Counsel during the reign of a king, is an eminent lawyer, appointed by the monarch to be one of "Her Majesty's Counsel learned in the law." The term is recognised as an honorific. The position exists in some Commonwealth jurisdictions around the world, but other Commonwealth countries have either abolished the position, or re-named it to eliminate monarchical connotations, such as "Senior Counsel" or "Senior Advocate". Queen's Counsel is an office, conferred by the Crown, recognised by courts. Members have the privilege of sitting within the bar of court; as members wear silk gowns of a particular design, appointment as Queen's Counsel is known informally as taking silk, hence QCs are colloquially called silks. Appointments are made from within the legal profession on the basis of merit rather than a particular level of experience. However, successful applicants tend to be barristers, or advocates with 15 years of experience or more; the Attorney General, Solicitor-General and King's Serjeants were King's Counsel in Ordinary in the Kingdom of England.
The first Queen's Counsel Extraordinary was Sir Francis Bacon, given a patent giving him precedence at the Bar in 1597, formally styled King's Counsel in 1603. The new rank of King's Counsel contributed to the gradual obsolescence of the more senior serjeant-at-law by superseding it; the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General had succeeded the King's Serjeants as leaders of the Bar in Tudor times, though not technically senior until 1623 and 1813, respectively. But the King's Counsel emerged into eminence only in the early 1830s, prior to when they were few in number, it became the standard means to recognise a barrister as a senior member of the profession, the numbers multiplied accordingly. It became of greater professional importance to become a KC, the serjeants declined; the KCs inherited the prestige of their priority before the courts. The earliest English law list, published in 1775, lists 165 members of the Bar, of whom 14 were King's Counsel, a proportion of about 8.5%. As of 2010 the same proportion existed, though the number of barristers had increased to about 12,250 in independent practice.
In 1839 the number of Queen's Counsel was seventy. In 1882, the number of Queen's Counsel was 187; the list of Queen's Counsel in the Law List of 1897 gave the names of 238, of whom hardly one third appeared to be in actual practice. In 1959, the number of practising Queen's Counsel was 181. In each of the five years up to 1970, the number of practising Queen's Counsel was 208, 209, 221, 236 and 262, respectively. In each of the years 1973 to 1978, the number of practising Queen's Counsel was 329, 345, 370, 372, 384 and 404, respectively. In 1989, the number of practising Queen's Counsel was 601. In each of the years 1991 to 2000, the number of practising Queen's Counsel was 736, 760, 797, 845, 891, 925, 974, 1006, 1043, 1072, respectively; the title traditionally depends on the sex of the sovereign. The current Queen, Elizabeth II has had a long reign, few if any people appointed as King's Counsel survive, it can be assumed that, should the Queen die and the reign pass to a descendant, holders of the title will again become KC, as the next three in line to the throne are male heirs.
Queen's Counsel and serjeants were prohibited, at least from the mid-nineteenth century onward, from drafting pleadings alone. They were not permitted to appear in court without a junior barrister, they had to have chambers in London. From the beginning, they were not allowed to appear against the Crown without a special licence, but this was given as a formality; this stipulation was important in criminal cases, which are brought in the name of the Crown. The result was that, until 1920 in England and Wales, King's and Queen's Counsel had to have a licence to appear in criminal cases for the defence; these restrictions had a number of consequences: they made the taking of "silk" something of a professional risk, because the appointment abolished at a stroke some of the staple work of the junior barrister. By the end of the twentieth century, all of these rules had been abolished one by one. Appointment as QC is now a matter of prestige only, with no formal disadvantages. Queen's Counsel were traditionally selected from barristers, rather than from lawyers in general, because they were counsel appointed to conduct court work on behalf of the Crown.
Although the limitations on private instruction were relaxed, QCs continued to be selected from barristers, who had the sole right of audience in the higher courts. The first woman appointed King's Counsel was Helen Kinnear in Canada in 1934; the first women to be appointed as King's Counsel in the United Kingdom were Helena Normanton and Rose Heilbron in 1949. In 1994 solicitors of England and Wales became entitled to gain rights of audience in the higher courts, some 275 were so entitled in 1995. In 1995, these solicitors alone became entitled to apply for appointment as Queen's Counsel, the first two solicitors were appointed on 27 March 1997, out of 68 new QCs; these were Arthur Marriott, partner of the London office of the American law firm of Wilmer Cutler and Pickering based in Washington, D. C. and Law
Australia
Australia the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area; the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea and East Timor to the north. The population of 25 million is urbanised and concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, its largest city is Sydney; the country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians for about 60,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, it is documented. After the European exploration of the continent by Dutch explorers in 1606, who named it New Holland, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788, a date which became Australia's national day; the population grew in subsequent decades, by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored and an additional five self-governing crown colonies established.
On 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, comprising six states and ten territories. Being the oldest and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils, Australia has a landmass of 7,617,930 square kilometres. A megadiverse country, its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east and mountain ranges in the south-east. A gold rush began in Australia in the early 1850s, its population density, 2.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, remains among the lowest in the world. Australia generates its income from various sources including mining-related exports, telecommunications and manufacturing. Indigenous Australian rock art is the oldest and richest in the world, dating as far back as 60,000 years and spread across hundreds of thousands of sites. Australia is a developed country, with the world's 14th-largest economy.
It has a high-income economy, with the world's tenth-highest per capita income. It is a regional power, has the world's 13th-highest military expenditure. Australia has the world's ninth-largest immigrant population, with immigrants accounting for 26% of the population. Having the third-highest human development index and the eighth-highest ranked democracy globally, the country ranks in quality of life, education, economic freedom, civil liberties and political rights, with all its major cities faring well in global comparative livability surveys. Australia is a member of the United Nations, G20, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, World Trade Organization, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Pacific Islands Forum and the ASEAN Plus Six mechanism; the name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis, a name used for a hypothetical continent in the Southern Hemisphere since ancient times. When Europeans first began visiting and mapping Australia in the 17th century, the name Terra Australis was applied to the new territories.
Until the early 19th century, Australia was best known as "New Holland", a name first applied by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1644 and subsequently anglicised. Terra Australis still saw occasional usage, such as in scientific texts; the name Australia was popularised by the explorer Matthew Flinders, who said it was "more agreeable to the ear, an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth". The first time that Australia appears to have been used was in April 1817, when Governor Lachlan Macquarie acknowledged the receipt of Flinders' charts of Australia from Lord Bathurst. In December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office. In 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known by that name; the first official published use of the new name came with the publication in 1830 of The Australia Directory by the Hydrographic Office. Colloquial names for Australia include "Oz" and "the Land Down Under". Other epithets include "the Great Southern Land", "the Lucky Country", "the Sunburnt Country", "the Wide Brown Land".
The latter two both derive from Dorothea Mackellar's 1908 poem "My Country". Human habitation of the Australian continent is estimated to have begun around 65,000 to 70,000 years ago, with the migration of people by land bridges and short sea-crossings from what is now Southeast Asia; these first inhabitants were the ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal Australian culture is one of the oldest continual civilisations on earth. At the time of first European contact, most Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers with complex economies and societies. Recent archaeological finds suggest. Indigenous Australians have an oral culture with spiritual values based on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime; the Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, obtained their livelihood from seasonal horticulture and the resources of their reefs and seas. The northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited s
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is an Australian public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it was Australia's first university and is regarded as one of the world's leading universities; the university is colloquially known as one of Australia's sandstone universities. Its campus is ranked in the top 10 of the world's most beautiful universities by the British Daily Telegraph and The Huffington Post, spreading across the inner-city suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington; the university comprises 9 faculties and university schools, through which it offers bachelor and doctoral degrees. In 2018-19, the QS World University Rankings ranked Sydney as one of the world's top 25 most reputable universities, its graduates as the top 5 most employable in the world and first in Australia. Five Nobel and two Crafoord laureates have been affiliated with the university as graduates and faculty; the university has educated seven Australian prime ministers, two Governors-General of Australia, nine state governors and territory administrators, 24 justices of the High Court of Australia, including four chief justices.
Sydney has produced 110 Rhodes Scholars and several Gates Scholars. The University of Sydney is a member of the Group of Eight, CEMS, the Association of Pacific Rim Universities and the Worldwide Universities Network. In 1848, in the New South Wales Legislative Council, William Wentworth, a graduate of the University of Cambridge and Charles Nicholson, a medical graduate from the University of Edinburgh Medical School, proposed a plan to expand the existing Sydney College into a larger university. Wentworth argued that a state secular university was imperative for the growth of a society aspiring towards self-government, that it would provide the opportunity for "the child of every class, to become great and useful in the destinies of his country", it would take two attempts on Wentworth's behalf, before the plan was adopted. The university was established via the passage of the University of Sydney Act, on 24 September 1850 and was assented on 1 October 1850 by Sir Charles Fitzroy. Two years the university was inaugurated on 11 October 1852 in the Big Schoolroom of what is now Sydney Grammar School.
The first principal was John Woolley, the first professor of chemistry and experimental physics was John Smith. On 27 February 1858 the university received its Royal Charter from Queen Victoria, giving degrees conferred by the university rank and recognition equal to those given by universities in the United Kingdom. By 1859, the university had moved to its current site in the Sydney suburb of Camperdown. In 1858, the passage of the electoral act provided for the university to become a constituency for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as soon as there were 100 graduates of the university holding higher degrees eligible for candidacy; this seat in the Parliament of New South Wales was first filled in 1876, but was abolished in 1880 one year after its second member, Edmund Barton, who became the first Prime Minister of Australia, was elected to the Legislative Assembly. Most of the estate of John Henry Challis was bequeathed to the university, which received a sum of £200,000 in 1889.
This was thanks in part due to William Montagu Manning who argued against the claims by British Tax Commissioners. The following year seven professorships were created: anatomy. A significant figure from 1927 to 1958, termed'Sydney's best known academic', was the Professor of Philosophy at the University John Anderson. A native of Scotland, Anderson's controversial views as a self-proclaimed Atheist and advocate of free thought in all subjects raised the ire of many to the point of being censured by the state parliament in 1943; the New England University College was founded as part of the University of Sydney in 1938 and separated in 1954 to become the University of New England. During the late 1960s, the University of Sydney was at the centre of rows to introduce courses on Marxism and feminism at the major Australian universities. At one stage, newspaper reporters descended on the university to cover brawls, secret memos and a walk-out by David Armstrong, a respected philosopher who held the Challis Chair of Philosophy from 1959 to 1991, after students at one of his lectures demanded a course on feminism.
The philosophy department split over the issue to become the Traditional and Modern Philosophy Department, headed by Armstrong and following a more traditional approach to philosophy, the General Philosophy Department, which follows the French continental approach. Under the terms of the Higher Education Act 1989 the following bodies were incorporated into the university in 1990: Sydney Branch of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Cumberland College of Health Sciences Sydney College of the Arts of the Institute of the Arts Sydney Institute of Education of the Sydney College of Advanced Education Institute of Nursing Studies of the Sydney College of Advanced Education Guild Centre of the Sydney College of Advanced Education. Prior to 1981, the Sydney Institute of Education was the Sydney Teachers College; the Orange Agricultural College was transferred to the University of New England under the Act, but transferred to the University of Sydney in 1994, as part of the reforms to the University of New England undertaken by the University of New England Act 1993 and the Southern Cross University Act 1993.
In January 2005, the University of Sydney transferred the OAC to Charles Sturt University. In February 2007, the university agreed to acquire a portion of the land granted to St John's College to develop the Sydney
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place during the 1930s, beginning in the United States. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, it was the longest and most widespread depression of the 20th century. In the 21st century, the Great Depression is used as an example of how intensely the world's economy can decline; the Great Depression started in the United States after a major fall in stock prices that began around September 4, 1929, became worldwide news with the stock market crash of October 29, 1929. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product fell by an estimated 15%. By comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession; some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s. However, in many countries the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II; the Great Depression had devastating effects in countries both poor. Personal income, tax revenue and prices dropped, while international trade plunged by more than 50%.
Unemployment in the U. S. rose to 25% and in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities around the world were hit hard those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was halted in many countries. Farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by about 60%. Facing plummeting demand with few alternative sources of jobs, areas dependent on primary sector industries such as mining and logging suffered the most. Economic historians attribute the start of the Great Depression to the sudden devastating collapse of U. S. stock market prices on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday. However, some dispute this conclusion and see the stock crash as a symptom, rather than a cause, of the Great Depression. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 optimism persisted for some time. John D. Rockefeller said "These are days. In the 93 years of my life, depressions have gone. Prosperity has always returned and will again." The stock market turned upward in early 1930. This was still 30% below the peak of September 1929.
Together and business spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. On the other hand, many of whom had suffered severe losses in the stock market the previous year, cut back their expenditures by 10%. In addition, beginning in the mid-1930s, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the U. S. By mid-1930, interest rates had dropped to low levels, but expected deflation and the continuing reluctance of people to borrow meant that consumer spending and investment were depressed. By May 1930, automobile sales had declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices in general began to decline, although wages held steady in 1930. A deflationary spiral started in 1931. Farmers faced a worse outlook. At its peak, the Great Depression saw nearly 10% of all Great Plains farms change hands despite federal assistance; the decline in the U. S. economy was the factor. Frantic attempts to shore up the economies of individual nations through protectionist policies, such as the 1930 U.
S. Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act and retaliatory tariffs in other countries, exacerbated the collapse in global trade. By 1933, the economic decline had pushed world trade to one-third of its level just four years earlier. Change in economic indicators 1929–32 The two classical competing theories of the Great Depression are the Keynesian and the monetarist explanation. There are various heterodox theories that downplay or reject the explanations of the Keynesians and monetarists; the consensus among demand-driven theories is that a large-scale loss of confidence led to a sudden reduction in consumption and investment spending. Once panic and deflation set in, many people believed they could avoid further losses by keeping clear of the markets. Holding money became profitable as prices dropped lower and a given amount of money bought more goods, exacerbating the drop in demand. Monetarists believe that the Great Depression started as an ordinary recession, but the shrinking of the money supply exacerbated the economic situation, causing a recession to descend into the Great Depression.
Economists and economic historians are evenly split as to whether the traditional monetary explanation that monetary forces were the primary cause of the Great Depression is right, or the traditional Keynesian explanation that a fall in autonomous spending investment, is the primary explanation for the onset of the Great Depression. Today the controversy is of lesser importance since there is mainstream support for the debt deflation theory and the expectations hypothesis that building on the monetary explanation of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz add non-monetary explanations. There is consensus that the Federal Reserve System should have cut short the process of monetary deflation and banking collapse. If they had done this, the economic downturn would have been much shorter. British economist John Maynard Keynes argued in The General Theory of Employment and Money that lower aggregate expenditures in the economy contributed to a massive decline in income and to employment, well below the average.
In such a situation, the economy reached equilibrium at low levels of economic activity and high unemployment. Keynes' basic idea was simple
City of Willoughby
The City of Willoughby is a local government area on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located 6 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district, it was first. The main commercial centre of the City of Willoughby is Chatswood, home to one of Sydney's suburban skyscraper clusters. Other commercial centres are the suburbs of St Leonards and Artarmon. Willoughby is situated on an elevated plateau, all of Sydney's television stations broadcast from towers in the area. Within the City of Willoughby is the Royal North Shore Hospital, located at St Leonards, one of Sydney's major hospitals. Suburbs and Localities in the City of Willoughby are: The City of Willoughby has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: Artarmon, 559 Pacific Highway: Chatswood Reservoirs No. 1 and No. 2 Castle Cove, 14 Cherry Place: Innisfallen Castle and grounds Castlecrag, 375 Edinburgh Road: Buhrich House II Castlecrag, 8 The Barbette: Duncan House Castlecrag, 80 The Bulwark: The Glass House Castlecrag, 15 The Citadel: Fishwick House Chatswood, 258-260 Mowbray Road: Windsor Gardens Chatswood, 313-315 Mowbray Road: Hilton Gore Hill, Pacific Highway: Gore Hill Memorial Cemetery Willoughby, 85-87 Penshurst Street: Laurelbank Willoughby, 2 Small Street: Walter Burley Griffin Incinerator, Willoughby At the 2016 Census, there were 74,302 people in the Willoughby local government area, of these 48.0% were male and 52.0% were female.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 0.2% of the population. The median age of people in the City of Willoughby was 37 years. Children aged 0 – 14 years made up 19.4% of the population and people aged 65 years and over made up 13.6% of the population. Of people in the area aged 15 years and over, 54.6% were married and 8.2% were either divorced or separated. Population growth in the City of Willoughby between the 2006 Census and the 2011 Census was 5.9%. When compared with total population growth of Australia for the same periods, being 8.3% and 8.8% population growth in Willoughby local government area has accelerated faster than the national average. At the 2016 Census, the proportion of residents in Willoughby local government area who stated their ancestry as Chinese was in excess of four times the state and national averages. Willoughby City Council is composed of thirteen councillors, including the mayor, for a fixed four-year term of office; the Mayor is directly elected while the twelve other councillors are elected proportionally as four separate wards, each electing three councillors.
The most recent Council election was held on 9 September 2017. The current Council is: In May 1865, 67 residents of the rural District of Willoughby sent a petition to the Governor Sir John Young, requesting the incorporation of the Municipality of North Willoughby; this resulted in the Municipality of North Willoughby being formally proclaimed on 23 October 1865. The council first met to elect six Councillors and two Auditors on 16 December 1865, in the house of James Harris French and the first Chairman, James William Bligh, was elected on 1 January 1866. There were no wards until 1876 when the council was divided into three wards: Chatsworth Ward to the north, Middle Harbour Ward to the east and Lane Cove Ward to the west. Lane Cove Ward became the separate Municipality of Lane Cove on 11 February 1895 and Middle Harbour Ward was divided into Middle Harbour and Naremburn wards. With the passing of the Municipalities Act, 1867, the name was changed to be the Borough of North Willoughby, which changed to Borough of Willoughby in the Borough of Willoughby Naming Act 1890.
In June 1900, a petition to expand the number of wards from three to four, each electing three aldermen, was proclaimed dividing Chatsworth Ward into Chatswood East and West wards in addition to Middle Harbour and Naremburn wards. From 28 December 1906, with the passing of the Local Government Act, 1906, the council area was renamed the Municipality of Willoughby. In August 1941, the Minister for Local Government, James McGirr, approved a proposal to split Middle Harbour Ward, adding Northbridge Ward as the fifth ward electing three aldermen; the first council meetings were held in a hut located behind the main residence of major landholder and timer merchant, James Harris French, on the corner of Penshurst and Penkivil Streets. Municipal offices were afterwards established in Penshurst Street near Forsyth Street corner; these were in turn followed by the Council Chambers in the old School of Arts building in Mowbray Road from 1877, which became part of the Mowbray House School. These chambers were replaced in 1903 by the first Town Hall building in Victoria Avenue, designed by Byera Hadley and opened by the Premier, Sir John See, on 2 September 1903.
The first town hall was demolished in 1969 and replaced by the second Willoughby Town Hall with the adjacent Council Administration Centre as the "Willoughby Civic Centre". The council was granted city status and was proclaimed as the City of Willoughby on 17 November 1989. A 2015 review of local government boundaries by the NSW Government Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal recommended that the City of Willoughby merge with adjoining councils; the government considered two proposals. The first proposed a merger of the North Sydney and Willoughby Councils to form a new council with an area of 33 square kilometres and support a population of 145,000; the alternative, proposed by Warringah Counci
1917 New South Wales state election
The 1917 New South Wales state election was held on 24 March 1917. This election was for all of the 90 seats in the 24th New South Wales Legislative Assembly and it was conducted in single-member constituencies with a second ballot if a majority was not achieved on the first; the 23rd parliament of New South Wales was dissolved on 21 February 1917 by the Governor, Sir Gerald Strickland, on the advice of the Premier William Holman. Since the previous election, Premier Holman had left the Labor Party with 17 of his supporters and entered into a coalition with the opposition Liberal Party, as a result of the 1916 conscription dispute that split the Labor Party nationally. In early 1917, Holman's supporters merged with the Liberals to form the New South Wales branch of the Nationalist Party. Although the merged party was dominated by former Liberals, Holman became its leader, thus remained premier; the Nationalists won a sweeping victory, scoring a 13-seat swing, magnified by the large number of former Labor MPs who followed Holman out of the party.
It thus presaged the federal Nationalists' comprehensive victory in the federal election two months later. "Former members of the New South Wales Parliament, 1856-2006". New South Wales Parliament. Retrieved 2012-07-08. Antony Green. "NSW Elections Analysis". New South Wales Parliament. Retrieved 2012-07-08. Candidates of the 1917 New South Wales state election Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, 1917–1920
