The Higgins family came from the strongly Catholic town of Ballina in
County Mayo on the west coast of Ireland.^2 The family had been Catholic
but, probably in search of social and economic advantage, became members of
the established Church of Ireland in the late eighteenth century. In 1841,
however, John Higgins, then aged in his early twenties, converted to Meth-
odism and announced his intention to become a travelling preacher. This led
him, and, after his marriage in 1848, his wife and family, to a peripatetic life of
relative poverty in a country recently devastated by the Great Famine. Their
second of nine children, Henry Bournes Higgins, was born in Newtownards in
County Down in 1851. The family continually moved around the Methodist
circuits and young Henry was frequently confronted with the brutal realities
of extreme poverty in post-famine rural Ireland.
A delicate child, who developed a stammer at a young age, Henry was
educated at a Wesleyan boarding school in Dublin, but left school at the age
of 14 due to poor health. He worked for some time as a shop assistant before,
in 1869, the whole family decided to migrate to Australia, primarily for the
healthier climate rather than perceived economic advantages. After arriving in
Melbourne, Henry worked as a schoolteacher and began studying law at the
University of Melbourne. In his twenties, Higgins abandoned the Wesleyan
faith he had been raised in, becoming a‘spiritual agnostic’, but he always
retained the strong social conscience and commitment to social justice typical
of Methodism. He was also a public supporter of Irish home rule, an unpopular
position in Protestant circles in Victoria. After graduation, he went to the bar,
where he overcame his stammer and quickly prospered. In 1894, he was
elected to the Victorian parliament as a‘small l’liberal and supporter of a
land tax. He was a Victorian delegate to the Federal Convention of 1897 that
framed the Australian Constitution, although he was deeply dissatisfied with
the result, regarding the document as rigid and oppressive. Although a good
friend of Alfred Deakin, he was always sympathetic to the Labor movement
and, in 1901, was elected to the federal parliament for Northern Melbourne, a
working-class constituency, and served as attorney-general in thefirst Labor
government in 1904. Higgins was appointed to the High Court in 1906, and
the following year became president of the Commonwealth Court of Concili-
ation and Arbitration. The Harvester Case was thefirst case Higgins heard as
president (Rickard 1984).
In contrast with the southern Irish and Wesleyan Higginses, the McKay and
Shaw families were Ulster Presbyterians who had been friends and neighbours
for generations. In 1851, the depressed Irish economy, following the famine,
prompted the families to sell their farms and other businesses and migrate to
(^2) The chief source for this account of the Higgins family is Rickard (1984).
The Industrialist, Solicitor, and Justice Higgins