Barton Government
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The Right Honourable Sir Edmund Barton GCMG, KC |
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1st Prime Minister of Australia Elections: 1901 |
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In office 1 January 1901 – 24 September 1903 |
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| Monarch |
Victoria Edward VII |
| Governor-General |
John Hope Hallam Tennyson |
| Deputy | Alfred Deakin |
| Preceded by | new office |
| Succeeded by | Alfred Deakin |
The Barton Government was the first federal Executive Government of the Commonwealth of Australia. It was led by Prime Minister Sir Edmund Barton, from 1 January 1901 until 24 September 1903, when Barton resigned to become one of the three founding judges of the High Court of Australia.
The background to the Barton Government saw the six British colonies of Australia vote to federate as one Commonwealth. Sir Henry Parkes was among the leading voices calling for Federation and had kick-started the movement with his Tenterfield Oration of 1889:
Known himself as the "Father of Federation", Parkes would die before the project was completed. Shortly before his death in 1896, Parkes called on Edmund Barton to take up the struggle of leading the push for Federation. Barton in turn announced:
After a series of constitutional conventions and referenda, the colonies agreed to federate as a new "commonwealth": the Commonwealth of Australia. The Constitution of Australia, with its provision for the foundation of a bicameral Australian Parliament, was endorsed by the Imperial Parliament in Britain and signed into law by Queen Victoria. Lord Hopetoun, a Lord-in-waiting to Queen Victoria and a former Governor of the Colony of Victoria, was selected as Australia's first Governor-General, and the appointment of the first Cabinet was put in train.
Edmund Barton became the newly Federated Australian nation's first Prime Minister at a grand ceremony in Centennial Park, Sydney, on 1 January 1901. He and his cabinet were sworn in by Australia's first Governor-General, Lord Hopetoun before an estimated crowd of 250,000 people. Hopetoun had first offered the position to the Premier of New South Wales Sir William Lyne (an opponent of Federation), but the other members of Cabinet and the general population saw Barton as the logical choice. The appointment was temporary, to organise the first general election.
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