Charles Mann junior an attorney general (four times) in 19th Century South Australia; follows father's pioneering role
A brilliant student, Charles Mann junior was one of the first graduates from Adelaide's St Peter's College at Hackney (at left, in an L. Tomlinson sketch in 1856, with the old Adelaide hospital at left) before embarking on a successful legal career and entering parliament where he became South Australia's attorney general (four times) in his father's footsteps.
Images courtesy National Library of Australia and State Library of South Australia
Charles Mann junior was four-times attorney general of 19th Century South Australia, following his father who was the first in that role during the province’s earliest European settlement. Charles Mann junior was also South Australian government treasurer from 1878 to 1881.
Charles Mann senior, an activist in fighting for the founding principles of South Australia in London and during setttlemnt, built up a large private practice, and became master of the supreme court of South Australia in 1844 and acting judge in 1849. He was appointed crown solicitor in 1850, police magistrate and insolvency commissioner in 1856, and commissioner of the court of insolvency and stipendiary magistrate in 1858.
The younger Mann was born in 1838 in Adelaide still in its tents and huts stage of settlement. A brilliant student, he was among the first to attend the city’s St Peter’s College. Having been articled to the firm of Bagot & Labatt, he was admitted as a legal practitioner in 1860, and went into partnership with H. W. Parker, a successful lawyer whose previous partner was Richard Hanson.
Mann was made Queen’s Counsel in 1875. Four years later, he brought in Alfred Whitby as a partner to take over his new office in Jamestown in South Australia’s mid north. Mann junior was involved in many of the high-profile legal cases, one of his last as chief adviser to the liquidators of the Commercial Bank of South Australia, and associated with Grundy and Gell, in the action for £320,000, against the bank's directors. A newspaper obituarty recalled that, "as a cross examiner, he was probably unrivalled in the whole of Australia, and there were many less entertaining mental recreations than thai of watching the unexpected evolution of a case in the Courts secured by the skilful cross-questioning, which Mr. Mann conducted with infinite drollery."
Mann junior was elected to the South Australian House of Assembly as the member for Burra in 1870. His four times at South Australian government attorney general were: 1871-72 in the last John Hart government and in the Arthur Blyth ministry; 1873-75 in the third Arthur Blyth ministry; 1876-77 and 1877-78 in the second and third James Boucaut governments. From 1875 to 1881, Mann represented the seat of Stanley that then took in townships including Port Pirie, Crystal Brook, Clare, Snowtown and Port Broughton.
Mann was treasurer in William Morgan’s government, from 1878 to 1881, when he was appointed crown solicitor (again, following his father) and public prosecutor, both of positions filled till his death in 1889. Mann was a prominent member of the Adelaide Club and a steward of the South Australian Jockey Club
