page_title: Robert Garran
section_title: Solicitor-General
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Garran / Public service / Solicitor-General
caption_attribution_description: The Australian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference at the end of World War I. From left to right: Lieutenant P E Deane (secretary to Billy Hughes), Miss Wood (typist), Sir Robert Garran (Solicitor-General of Australia), W E Corrigan (messenger), Captain H S Gullett (press officer), Billy Hughes (Prime Minister of Australia), R Mungovan (secretary to Sir Joseph Cook), Sir Joseph Cook (Minister for the Navy), Miss Carter (typist), Lieutenant Commander John Latham (Commander, Naval Intelligence), Lieutenant F W Eggleston (assistant to Sir Robert Garran)
context_page_description: Sir Robert Randolph Garran GCMG QC was an Australian lawyer who became "Australia's first public servant" – the first federal government employee after the federation of the Australian colonies. He served as the departmental secretary of the Attorney-General's Department from 1901 to 1932, and after 1916 also held the position of Solicitor-General of Australia.
  Garran was born in Sydney, the son of the journalist and politician Andrew Garran. He studied arts and law at the University of Sydney and was called to the bar in 1891. Garran was a keen supporter of the federation movement, and became acquainted with leading federalists like George Reid and Edmund Barton. At the 1897–98 constitutional convention he served as secretary of the drafting committee. On 1 January 1901, Garran was chosen by Barton's caretaker government as its first employee; for a brief period, he was the only member of the Commonwealth Public Service. His first duty was to write the inaugural edition of the Commonwealth Gazette, which contained Queen Victoria's proclamation authorising the creation of a federal government.
context_section_description: In 1916, Garran was made the first Solicitor-General of Australia by Billy Hughes, who had since become Prime Minister as well as Attorney-General. The creation of the office and Garran's appointment to it represented a formal delegation of many of the powers and functions formerly exercised by the Attorney-General.
  Garran developed a strong relationship with Hughes, giving him legal advice on the World War I conscription plebiscites and on the range of regulations which were made under the War Precautions Act 1914. The War Precautions Regulations had a broad scope, and were generally supported by the High Court, which adopted a much more flexible approach to the reach of the Commonwealth's defence power during wartime. A substantial amount of Garran's work during the war involved preparing and carrying out the regulations. Many of them were directed at maximising the economic aspect of the war effort and ensuring supplies of goods to Australian troops; others were directed at controlling citizens or former citizens of the enemy Central Powers living in Australia. On one occasion, when Hughes had been informed that at a party hosted by a German man, the band had played "Das Lied der Deutschen", Hughes asked Garran "By the way, what is this tune?" to which Garran replied that it was Haydn's melody to "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser", and as it was used as the tune to several hymns "it was probably sung in half a dozen churches in Sydney last Sunday." Hughes then said "Good Heavens! I have played that thing with one finger hundreds of times."
  The partnership between Garran and Hughes is regarded by some as unusual, given that Garran was "tall, gentlemanly, wise and scholarly", and patient with his staff, whereas Hughes was "short of stature [and] renowned for bursts of temper." Nevertheless, the partnership was a successful one, with Hughes recognising the importance of Garran's constitutional expertise, remarking once about the World War I period that "the best way to govern Australia was to have Sir Robert Garran at [my] elbow, with a fountain pen and a blank sheet of paper, and the War Precautions Act." Likewise, Garran respected Hughes' strong leadership style, which had been important in guiding the country through the war, although in describing the Nationalist Party's loss in the 1922 federal election, Garran later said that "Hughes also overestimated his own hold on Parliament [although] his hold on the people was probably undiminished."
  Garran accompanied Hughes and Joseph Cook (then the Minister for the Navy) to the 1917 and 1918 meetings of the Imperial War Cabinet in London, United Kingdom, and was also part of the British Empire delegation to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference in Paris, France. There he was on several of the treaty drafting committees, and contributed to many provisions, notably the portions of the League of Nations Covenant relating to League of Nations mandates. Though focusing mainly on League of Nations matters, Garran and John Latham (the head of Australian Naval Intelligence) had the status of technical advisers to Hughes and Cook, and so could attend the main conference and any of the associated councils. Observing the proceedings, Garran admired the "moral and physical courage" of French premier Georges Clemenceau, whom he regarded as determined to protect France from Germany but in a measured and temperate way; in Garran's words, Clemenceau "always withstood the excessive demands of the French chauvinists, of the French army, and of Foch himself". Garran viewed some similarities between British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and United States President Woodrow Wilson where others saw only differences, since Lloyd George "also had a strong vein of idealism in his character", and Wilson could be pragmatic when the situation called for it, such as in discussions relating to American interests. Garran also met other political and military leaders at the conference, including T. E. Lawrence, "an Oxford youth of 29 – he looks 18", who was modest and "without any affectation... in a company o
caption: The Australian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. Garran is in the front row, seated, second from left. Also pictured are Billy Hughes, front centre, and Sir Joseph Cook, seated, second from right.
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