George Higinbotham
Anglo-Australian politician and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria
George Higinbotham (19 April 1826 – 31 December 1892) was a politician and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria, which is the highest ranking court in the Australian colony, later state, of Victoria.
Early life
George Higinbotham was the sixth son (and youngest of eight) of Henry Higinbotham, a merchant in Dublin, and Sarah Wilson, daughter of Joseph Wilson.
Higinbotham qualified for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1849 and Master of Arts in 1853.
Move to Australia
On 1 December 1853 Higinbotham left Liverpool for Australia on the Briseis and arrived in Melbourne on 10 March 1854, where he contributed to the Melbourne Herald and practised at the bar with much success. In 1857 he became editor of the Melbourne Argus, but resigned in 1859 and returned to the bar. He was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly in May 1861 for Brighton as an independent Liberal, was rejected at the general election of July the same year, but was returned nine months later.
Attorney-General
In June 1863, Higinbotham became attorney-general in the Sir James McCulloch government. Under his influence measures were passed through the legislative assembly of a somewhat extreme character, completely ignoring the rights of the Victorian Legislative Council, and the government was carried on without any Appropriation Act for more than a year. Higinbotham, by his eloquence and earnestness, obtained great influence amongst the members of the legislative assembly, but his colleagues were not prepared to follow him as far as he desired to go.
Higinbotham contended that in a constitutional colony like Victoria the secretary of state for the colonies had no right to fetter the discretion of the queen's representative.
The public source identifies “George Higinbotham” as anglo-Australian politician and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around George, Higinbotham and Anglo-Australian.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5540595. VIAF identifies the subject as 821387. The Library of Congress control number is nr91045448. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1826, 1892, 1849 and 1853.
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This entry incorporates text from “George Higinbotham” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.