Edgar (Ted) Bean, a master drafter of South Australian laws; has strong influence on premier Tom Playford

A master draftsman of the state legislation, Edgar (Ted) Bean's greatest achievement was condensing and simplifying all South Australian laws, published in nine volumes as The Public General Acts of South Australia, 1837-1936. At right is a later Volume 12. With a wider role in the public service, Bean became a strong influence on premier Tom Playford.
Images courtesy State Library of South Australia (by Hammer & Co,) and South Australian government

The brilliant and prolific Edgar (Ted) Bean, a master draftsman of South Australian laws, became the influential right hand man to premier Tom Playford  (1938-65) .

Bean, born in 1893 at Moonee Ponds, Melbourne, to accountant George Alfred Bean and wife Amelia, was educated at Scotch College in Perth. He enrolled at the  Adelaide University where he completed a brilliant bachelor of arts degree, winning the Barr Smith prize for Greek (1911) and a David Murray scholarship (1913). With university funding for a passage to England, he entered Merton College, Oxford, in 1914 to read classics (bachelor of arts 1919; master of arts 1922). During World War I, he enlisted in the British army from 1915, served in France with the Royal Field Artillery and was wounded in action.

After the war, Bean returned to Adelaide and, in 1920, joined the South Australian government’s crown solicitor's department as a clerk. He completed a degree in law at Adelaide University in 1922 and was admitted to the South Australian Bar in 1923. From 1922, he was an associate of justice Thomas Slaney Poole of the supreme court of South Australia. Bean married Constance Mary Greenlees at Chalmers Congregational Church, Adelaide city, in 1926.

Bean was appointed in 1926 as the state's parliamentary draftsman, an office he held until 1959 while framing about 1,500 legislative bills. Reputedly South Australia's finest parliamentary draftsman and possibly Australia’s best, his greatest achievement, with Jack Cartledge, was a three year task of condensing and simplifying all South Australian laws, published in nine volumes as The Public General Acts of South Australia, 1837-1936 (1937-40). Bean was appointed a companion of the British order of St Michael and St George in 1937.

Bean’s wide role in the state public service included being on the permanent advisory committee to keep the government informed on the Road Traffic Act, and the chairman of the statutory committee fixing rates under the compulsory third party insurance of motor vehicles. Bean was deputy chairman of the committee which drafted the Road Traffic Bill, chairman of a committee that drafted uniform taxation law for all Australian states and a member of the first committee on schemes for farmers’ relief. For three years, he chaired the commission that revised the whole of local government areas of South Australia.

Besides being on the South Australian government superannuation fund board (1928-62) and state public service board (1942-51), the insurance premiums committee, the education inquiry committee (1942-49) and the teachers' salaries board (1946-64). He was also a director of Southern Television Corporation Ltd (1960-70) and of News Ltd. He was a board member (1960-71) of the Minda Home for Weak-Minded Children when his eldest son John lived there.

During War II, Bean was mobilised in 1942 in the Australian military forces; promoted to lieutenant in July, and served in the 3rd Battalion of the volunteer defence corps before resigning in 1944. He was knighted in 1955.

Regarded as a workaholic, Bean became the right hand man in government to South Australian premier Tom Playford, having an extraordinary influence and one of the few public servants with Playford throughout his political career. Bean and Playford talked issues over and went fishing together, with Bean the teacher to the largely self-educated Playford.

Bean liked reading and walking. He belonged to the Pickwick, Adelaide, and the Naval, Military and Air Force clubs, and joined the Eucalypts, an exclusive club of 12 members who aimed promote truth, good fellowship, brotherly love and wisdom. The group met monthly in one another's homes for a ceremonial pipe and coffee, and to discuss papers about literature, history or philosophy. Bean’s reading showed his liberal ideals.

• Information from Patricia Sumerling, “Bean, Sir Edgar Layton (1893-1977)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University,