- page -
http://www.cdu.edu.au/cdupress
Go Back >> List of Entries
In 1890 Forrest pioneered the cattle-shipping trade from the Kimberleys to Fremantle, forming in 1894 the firm
of Forrest, Emanuel and Company, which monopolised the trade from Derby. Rivalry was encountered from 1894
from the firm of Connor and Doherty (after 1897 Connor, Doherty and Durack) operating from Wyndham, which
drew cattle from both sides of the Western Australia/Northern Territory border. When redwater fever caused
by cattle tick broke out in the hinterland of Wyndham in 1896–97 the Western Australian government banned
the export of live cattle from that district to any point south of the Kimberleys. As this benefited the firm of
Forrest, Emanuel and as Alexander Forrest was the Premier’s brother, controversy was lively; however the tick
barrier was eventually surmounted by the introduction of quarantine, by overlanding cattle across the Territory to
meatworks in Queensland and by attempts to develop overseas markets. Forrest, however, had no inhibitions about
investing in the Northern Territory, and at the time of his death in 1901 Forrest and Emanuel, in partnership with
Sidney Kidman were negotiating for the purchase of Victoria River Downs.
Intensely criticised by goldfields radicals because of his extensive business interests and family connections,
Alexander Forrest’s later years were saddened by his wife’s death in 1897, leaving him with four young sons and a
daughter. Nominated a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) during the visit of the Duke
and Duchess of York in May 1901, he was stricken shortly afterward by his second son’s death in action in the
South African War. He died of complications arising from kidney trouble at Perth on 20 June 1901. He was interred
in Karrakatta cemetery. His statue, by Pietro Porcelli, stands at the corner of St George’s Terrace and Barrack
Street, Perth. Its inscription lists his feats as explorer and public man, but is best remembered for the epitaph:
‘He was the generous friend of many.’
G C Bolton, Alexander Forrest: his Life and Times, 1958; C T Stannage, The People of Perth, 1979; Alexander Forrest papers in the Battye
Library, Perch.
GEOFFREY BOLTON, Vol 1.
FORSTER, (Sir) WILLIAM EDWARD STANLEY (1921– ), lawyer, Master of the Supreme Court of South
Australia, and first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory was born at Sydney, New South
Wales on 15 June 1921. His father, Frank Barton Forster, was a chemist for the Colonial Sugar Refinery Ltd
and he was born in Goondi, North Queensland. His mother, Daphne Eileen, nee Bowden, was born in England.
His parents married in the United Kingdom during the First World War.
In 1929, his father was transferred to Glanville, Adelaide, where Forster attended St Peter’s College. He left
school at the end of 1938 to take up employment as a clerk for the Commonwealth Oil Refineries Ltd (now British
Petroleum), intending nevertheless to commence university studies in due course. In 1940 he joined the Royal
Australian Air Force. After serving for two years as a flying instructor, he was posted to No 4 Squadron as an army
corps pilot, and served the remainder of the war in New Guinea and Borneo. After his discharge with the rank
of Flight Lieutenant in February 1946, he commenced his legal studies at the University of Adelaide, graduating
Bachelor of Laws in 1949. As a student he was awarded the Stow Prize (1948) and the David Murray Scholarship
(1949) for academic achievement. After serving articles and acting as associate to Acting Judge Paine, he was
admitted to the Supreme Court of South Australia as a barrister and solicitor in 1950, and joined the firm of Knox
and Hargrave, (a firm with connections in Alice Springs) until taking up an appointment as a magistrate in the
Adelaide Police Court in 1959.
On 11 February 1950 he married Johanna Beryl Forbes, daughter of Brigadier A M Forbes. There were
three children; Antonia Margaret Williams, (later Professor of English Literature at the University of Ohio);
William Alexander Barton Forster (a nurse); Katherine (Kate) Johanna Alsopp, (a solicitor).
In 1960 Forster was appointed Deputy Master of the Supreme Court of South Australia, and Master in 1966,
a position he held until 1971. Between 1957 and 1971 Forster lectured at the University of Adelaide in criminal
law (1957–1958) and in procedure (1967–1971). From 1967 to 1971 he was a member of the Standing Committee
of the Senate of the University.
On 28 June 1971 he was appointed Senior Judge of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory to replace
Justice Blackburn who had transferred to the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory. At that time, there
was only one resident judge in the Northern Territory, although the Commonwealth had appointed a number of
federal judges as ‘additional’ judges of the court to assist with the work load as required. Forster was the ninth
person to occupy the position of resident Judge, since the Court’s inception in May 1911, and the last person to be
the sole resident judge. Between 1974 and 1982 a number of additional appointments were made, resulting in the
growth of the Court to six permanent judges.
After Cyclone Tracy on 24 December 1974 had devastated Darwin, Forster resisted efforts to move the seat of
the Court to Alice Springs, and by March 1975 the Court was able to continue to function fully in Darwin largely
due to his efforts.
On 1 February 1977 he was appointed Chief Judge of the Court and on 1 October 1979, when executive
responsibility for law was transferred to the Northern Territory Government following self-government in 1978,
he was appointed the Court’s first Chief Justice.
After 1977 appeals from the Court lay to the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia instead of to the
High Court of Australia, which had heard all appeals since 1918. It was a requirement of the Federal Court of
Australia Act at that time that at least one member of the Full Court sitting on appeals should be a judge of the
Supreme Court. For partly this reason Forster and the other judges of the Court (Justices James Henry Muirhead,
Richard Charles Ward and John Leslie Toohey) were appointed Judges of the Federal Court in 1977, as was
Justice John Forster Gallop in 1978. Appeals continued to lie to the Federal Court throughout Forster’s career,