A.J. Hannan, South Australia's crown solicitor (1927-52), motived by states' rights and Catholicism
Crown solicitor A.J. Hannan (in caricature by J.H. Chinner) was backed by South Australian premier Thomas Playford to be elevated to the South Australian supreme court but this was resisted by chief justice Mellis Napier.
Albert James Hannan, South Australia’s crown solicitor for 25 years (1927-1952), brought a strong Roman Catholic sensibility to the role that included high court of Australia and prive council appeals in pursuit of states' rights..
Born in 1887 to farmer Francis and his wife Mary at Lower Broughton in mid-north South Australia, Hannan was educated at Port Pirie West and Solomontown public schools before Sacred Heart College in Adelaide. He graduated from Adelaide University (bachelor of arts 1909; bachelor of law 1912; master of arts 1914), he graduated with first-class honours in classics.
Hannan taught briefly at Unley High School, then enrolled in law at the university where he won two Stow prizes and the David Murray scholarship. He became known to friends as “Tacky” after being admonished by classics professor Henry Naylor with “Tace, Hannan” (Be silent, Hannan) for interrupting frequently.
Hannan was articled to George McEwin and admitted to the Bar in 1913. He immediately joined the South Australian government’s attorney general and crown solicitor's department as assistant parliamentary draftsman, becoming parliamentary draftsman in 1916 and assistant crown solicitor in 1917. Enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force in 1918, Hannan wasn’t called up and discharged one week after the Armistice. At St Francis Xavier's Cathedral, Adelaide city, in 1919. he married Elizabeth Mary Catherine Rzeszkowski (who died in 1922) and then Una Victoria Measday, a 33-year-old clerk, in the Catholic archbishop's house, West Terrace, Adelaide city, in 1927.
Between 1917 and 1925 Hannan taught law part time at Adelaide University university before being promoted to crown solicitor in 1927 until he retired. Appointed king’s counsel in 1935, he was Law Society of South Australia 1837-39. Hannan fervently believed in states rights and wary of any move towards centralism – motivating the zest to his pleadings in constitutional cases. In 1946 he was appointed to the order of St Michael and St George.
Hannan successfully represented the South Australian and Western Australian governments in appeals to the high court of Australia (1948) and the privy council (1949) in London against Ben Chifley’s federal government's Banking Act (1947). He controversially accused the federal Labor government of tapping his telephone and interfering with his mail.
South Australian premier Thomas Playford was determined to see Hannan elevated to the supreme court but this was resisted by chief justice Mellis Napier. Eventually Napier relented and agreed to Hannan being an acting judge three times in 1954-57. The deeply religious Hannan persistently pursued Adelaide University having a residential college for Catholics. Aquinas College was affiliated in 1947 and a college wing named after him. He was conferred with Roman Catholic honours: Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice (1946) and knight of the Order of St Sylvester (1955). In 1953, he registered his change of Christian names from James Garrett to Albert James by deed poll.
During World War II, Hannan opposed the Common Cause movement involving prominent communists and was a key figure in “A Call to the People of Australia” (1951). Hannan’s major publications were Summary Procedure of Justices in South Australia (1922), The Practice of the Local Court in South Australia (1934) and the adulatory Life of Chief Justice Way (1960) were Hannan's major publications. He was a council member (1939-61) of Adelaide University, warden (1960) of its senate and a St Ann’s College council member (1949-65). He belonged to the Adelaide (from 1936) and Modern Pickwick clubs, and was president (1957) of the Commonwealth Club of Adelaide. He was given a state funeral in 1965.