NationalDemocracy

Lawyer politicians John Downer, 'Paddy' Glynn, John Hannah Gordon give South Australian shape to Constitution

Lawyer politicians John Downer, 'Paddy' Glynn, John Hannah Gordon give South Australian shape to Constitution
John Downer, Edmund Barton and R.E. O'Connor who were the committee writing the final draft of the Australian constitution. Other South Australian delegates Patrick Glynn (top right) and John Hannah Gordon (bottom right) also made contribitions to the wording.
Images by State Library of South Australia

John Downer, a former South Australian premier, was on the committee of three who made the final draft of the Australian constitution, adopted in 1899. The committee, led by Downer’s friend (and first Australian prime minister-to-be) Edmund Barton, worked at Downer’s Pennington Terrace, North Adelaide, home – later part of St Mark’s university college.

Downer, a clever scholarship winner to St Peter’s College in Adelaide, became a lawyer and conservative politician but a reformer on some issues like women's rights. In 1883, he passed a law allowing married women the right to own property. He supported votes for women. In the South Australian delegation to federal conventions in 1891 and 1897-98, he supported a strong Senate to protect the smaller states.

In 1901, Downer was elected to the first Senate and supported Barton's government. He was disappointed not to be appointed to the first high court.

Among novel contributions by South Australians to the federation were American-born premier (1901-05) John Jenkins’s knowledge of the United States constitution and advice against a confederacy.

Future South Australian supreme court justice John Hannah Gordon is credited, with lawyer and politician Patrick “Paddy” Glynn, of winning the case for South Australia's equal access to River Murray water.

Glynn’s better-known contribution was to have the reference to “God” in the preamble of the constitution. At the first convention in Adelaide, he made a reputation for knowing constitutional law, thorough research into topics, rapid delivery, broad brogue and general learning. Alfred Deakin believed that “if not the best-read man of the convention”, Glynn “certainly carried more English prose and poetry in his memory than any three or four of his associates”.

With H.B. Higgins and Josiah Symon, Glynn led the judiciary committee that, with the constitutional and finance committees, prepared a draft commonwealth bill. During a Sydney session of the convention, he brightened proceedings by what The Bulletin called his “meteor-like rush into matrimony”. Within a week, he wrote a letter of proposal, was accepted by telegram, married Abigail Dynon in Melbourne and returned to Sydney. King O’Malley was his best man.

Elected to the House of Representatives as a free trader in 1901, Glynn served as attorney-general in Deakin's fusion government, minister for external affairs in the Joseph Cook (Liberal) administration (1913-14), and home and territories minister in Bill Hughes's Nationalist government from 1917. He was the last of the federal founding fathers to sit in the commonwealth parliament.

John Hannah Gordon’s contribution to the conventions had most significance in the 21st Century when a group of federal politicians, including deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, were disqualified under Section 44 of the constitution because of dual citizenship.

At the convention in Melbourne in 1898, Gordon wanted to add the words “or who has not since been naturalised” to Section 44 – allowing people to be elected if they had become British subjects. But he was shut down by others, including Glynn (“You cannot have two allegiances.”), Barton (“No; a man might have to go out of our parliament to serve against us.”) and George Turner (“He may be minister of defence.”) At the time the constitution was written, there were no Australian citizens – something not created until 1949.

Other related ADELAIDE AZ articles

South Australian governors George Grey (1841-45), at left, and Frederick Robe (1845-48) took charge of South Australia as a British crown colony from 1842.
Democracy >
Governors get all power from 1842 with South Australia made a crown colony and its founding hybrid model dumped
READ MORE+
The 46 candidates elected to the six regional local voices in the South Australia’s state-based inaugural First Nations Voice to Parliament in 2024 were 11 for the central region (including Adelaide metropolitan area) and seven for each of the other five regions. The candidates would choice two representatives from each region for the state voice.
Democracy >
Members of regional voices for state-based Voice to Parliament in South Australia elected in 2024 on low turnout
READ MORE+
Wayne Jackson was inducted into the South Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2004 and also made a life member of the national Australian Football League.
National >
Wayne Jackson readied for Australian Football League's top role (1996-2003) by a string of Adelaide influences
READ MORE+
Later Northern Territory chief justice, William Forster was Adelaide University lecturer of law and procedure from 1967 to 1971 after being criminal law lecturer in 1957-58.
National >
William Forster first Northern Territory chief justice after his Adelaide law includes university lecturer
READ MORE+
John Cockburn (far right) with other South Australian premiers in the Australian federation push (seated, from left) Frederick Holder, Charles Cameron Kingston and Thomas Playford II. Image courtesy of State Library of South Australia
National >
John Cockburn's South Australia free trade, Murray water worry; loses federation fight for Aboriginal votes
READ MORE+
G23, the first passenger train between Port Augusta and Kalgoorlie on the Trans-Australian line in 1917. Inset: Australian governor general Lord Denman marking the start of the railway at Port Augusta in 1912. Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
National >
Federal railways bring a third gauge – the standard – into South Australian broad and narrow system in 1917
READ MORE+

 

 
©2025 Adelaide AZ | Privacy | Terms & Disclaimer | PWA 1.1.58