Overview

This biography, the 12th in Bennett's Lives of Australian Chief Justices, commemorates the distinguished career of Tasmania's Sir Valentine Fleming. \nAn English barrister of Irish descent and education, Fleming arrived in Hobart as Insolvency Commissioner. A useful man to government, he advanced as Crown Law Officer and served ex officio in the Legislative Council until succeeding Sir John Pedder as Chief Justice in 1854. \nThis elevation released Fleming from a political role he hated and enabled him to dispel the enmity his pro-government views in that role had attracted. \nHe proved to be a model judicial lawyer, blending a conscientious, considerate and courteous manner with a powerful command of legal principle, as when his decision in Hampton v. Fenton that a colonial legislature had no inherited power to punish extra-mural contempt, was upheld by the Privy Council. \nAlthough keeping generally aloof from the community, he was the first Chancellor of the Anglican Diocese of Tasmania and; a proponent of universal education, the first President of the Tasmanian Council of Education. His grand Hobart residence Holbrook , convict designed and in a Scottish style, is a surviving memorial.

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Dr. Bennett takes us back in time, whilst enabling us to view the past from our present perspective, a remarkable gift ... These books are most readable ... very easy to read in one session, or a chapter or so at a time. ... I think what interests me most about these books is the insight they present to the expectations of the community 160 years ago, as much as the revelation of the personality of the subject of the book. Fleming certainly received a lot of attention both from the politicians and the press. His ability to retain his composure and objectivity is, on my reading, one of the major threads to come through the book. ... I would again highly recommend this and all the previous Lives for any person, practitioner or otherwise, who has any interest in the early conduct of the Courts and the practice of the law in Colonial Tasmania. - Law Letter, Autumn 2008

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