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Alfred Deakin

Australian politician (1856–1919)

Alfred Deakin (3 August 1856 – 7 October 1919) was an Australian politician who served as the second prime minister of Australia from 1903 to 1904, 1905 to 1908 and 1909 to 1910. He held office as the leader of the Protectionist Party, and in his final term as that of the Liberal Party. He is notable for being one of the founding fathers of Federation and for his influence in early Australian politics.

Deakin in 1905

Quotes

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  • He was timorous, changeable, inconsistent, erratic, gloomy and absorbed, then sparkling and excitable by turns, his fine face pale and puffy — his fine head rapidly turning grey — his figure growing too portly — his hand trembling, his eye restless, his demeanour that of one who drifted in and out of dreams and some of them bad dreams.
  • He sought rest only in perpetual physical motion.
    • The Federal Story (1944) [Of Lord Rosebery]
  • His nervous instability was painful, his poses perpetual and his vanity colossal.
    • The Federal Story (1944) [Of Lord Rosebery]
  • He was petulent as a child, irritable to a degree at the least criticism, oscillating between apparently unaffected indifference to public opinion and the keenest appetite for its applause. The genuine indifference was that of a jaded man who has lost self-confidence and is thoroughly weak of will. His affected indifference was part of a theatrical pose he played with foolish ostentation. He was such a mass of weaknesses and wilfulnesses and insincerities that he leaned for support upon any who could win his confidence, which could always be accomplished by flatterers or intriguers.
    • The Federal Story (1944) [Of Lord Rosebery]
  • He had apparently no illusions, no passions and no pre dominantly great ideals. He had the official manner, imperturbable and impenetrable, which would have made the fortune of an ambassador in Bismarck's eves.
  • A splendidly built man of towering height but never unwieldy, with a high forehead, keen eyes glittering through his spectacles, strongly marked features, and manly address, his many charms of character and some powers of mind were ill conjoined. He was not only prejudiced even among the New South Welshmen of his day, but obstinate, eccentric and changeable. Converted from an ardent Free Trader into a strong Protectionist almost without an interval long enough to permit of baptism, he compared it, himself. to the miraculous conversion of St Paul.
  • His colonial career though brilliant in parts was, on the whole, unsatisfactory, largely owing to British prejudice against an avowed 'Irish rebel' and partly owing to un attractive characteristics of temperament. My acquaintance with him was slight and short. He was Speaker of the Legislative Assembly when I entered it for a day in 1879 but not when I returned in 1880. His intellectual forehead, dignified demeanour and carefully polished utterances well fitted him for the post, though his voice at once weak and harsh, thin and squeaky, and his cold, calculating eye indicated the physical and emotional defects which helped to cripple his efforts and to defeat his soaring ambition. The literary graces and practised craftsmanship manifest in all his writings indicate the natural bent of his abilities and enable him to present in his autobiography a flattering full-length portrait of himself as he believed himself or desired others to believe him to be.
  • Sir Thomas was a man of business, stout, florid, choleric, curt and Cromwellian.
  • Though a Tasmanian born he appealed at all times to the narrowest Sydney and New South Wales provincialism by the pettiest and meanest acts and proposals. He was an anti- Federalist from the first, except upon terms which should ensure the absolute supremacy of his own colony as a stepping- stone to his own elevation.
    • The Federal Story (1944) [Of William (later Sir William) Lyne]
  • ... his politics were a chaos and his career contemptible.
    • The Federal Story (1944) [Of William (later Sir William) Lyne]
  • One of Sir Henry Parkes's besetting foibles was a love of associating himself with notables of the day, of whom he devoutly preserved all mementoes, of whom he frequently spoke and with whom he corresponded whenever possible. At the [Federation] Conference of 1890 he managed to introduce with comments a letter from Lecky and to mention by the way that he had been introduced to him by Lord Tennyson.
    • The Federal Story (1944)
  • Parkes said of himself and another member that they were alike in that they consistently lived above their means. He was as much an admirer of the fair sex, so that when once on a specially dashing woman appearing in the gallery of the New South Wales Assembly, and Parkes being asked who she was, replied in sardonic style: "Well I don't know myself. I've asked George Reid and Wise, and they don't know, from which I conclude that she must be a woman of good reputation."
    • The Federal Story (1944)
  • Knowledge was his forte and omniscience his foible.
  • He possessed for a time practically despotic authority "On the one condition", as he shrewdly said, "that I did not exercise it."
  • Reid was neither federal nor anti-federal but either at need and as far as possible both at once. It is difficult indeed to describe so extraordinary a man without appearing to caricature him ...

Quotes about

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  • A man of talent and of clean good sense,
      Who speaks with polished air —
    On silver floods of his own eloquence
      He floats to God knows where.
    • Victor Daley, "Federation Convention Vignettes", in Victor Daley, ed. H. J. Oliver (1963)
  • He seldom, if ever, fought with an axe. His weapon was the rapier...
    • W. A. Watt, Foreword to Alfred Deakin: The Federal Story (1944)
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