Bill Dovey
Encyclopedia
Wilfred Robert 'Bill' Dovey KC (10 April 189412 December 1969) was a judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales
in Australia
from 1953 to 1964. He was described as colourful, slightly eccentric and irascible, although he had a brilliant legal mind and a Shakespearean vocabulary. His daughter Margaret
married the future Prime Minister of Australia
Gough Whitlam
.
in 1894. His father Robert Dovey had been an assistant to William Farrer
. His mother Winifred Isabel Agnes, née Adams, was born in China
. He studied at the Sydney Grammar School
and the University of Sydney
. He served in World War I
in New Guinea
. He married Mary Dorothy Duncan four days before leaving for Rabaul
with the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force
in August 1914. After discharge in 1915, he taught at Brisbane Grammar School
and studied law at the University of Queensland
. He was admitted to the New South Wales Bar in 1922.
He was a keen rugby league
player. In 1928 he and some football-playing friends, in post-match liquor-fuelled high spirits, were reputed to have jumped across the then-unfinished spans of the Sydney Harbour Bridge
, 134 metres above the water.
He was appointed King's Counsel
in 1935. He was an alderman on the Waverley Municipal Council
in 1935-36.
He was involved in a number of royal commissions and inquiries, such as those on doctors' remuneration for national insurance (1938), the detention of members of the Australia First Movement
(1944) and Illegal Activities in the New South Wales Liquor Industry (1951–52); in the latter case he engaged his son-in-law Gough Whitlam
as his junior (Whitlam had married Dovey's daughter Margaret
in 1942). Dovey represented many criminals in high profile court cases of the day, including the gangland figure, John Frederick "Chow" Hayes and the notorious Sydney identity, Kate Leigh
.
Bill Dovey was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales
in 1953. His cases included an early prosecution of Abe Saffron
. He was known for his short temper and he did not shrink from sharp criticisms in his judgments. In turn, he was often publicly criticised himself. For his conduct in the Royal Commission on the activities of the NSW Police, he was censured by the Bar Association
of NSW for lacking tolerance and judicial calm and exhibiting "a great disservice to the bench and the legal profession"; he was also criticised by the Incorporated Law Institute for "departing from accepted standards of courtesy, fairness and patience". John Douglas Pringle, editor of The Sydney Morning Herald
, condemned "the mean and shabby courtroom ... where the judge failed to preserve that august and aloof detachment which is his function and participated in the inquiry as though he was counsel engaged for an interested party".
He was a racehorse owner and was frequently seen at racecourses wearing his trademark top hat
and a monocle
. One of his top hats is now on display at the Powerhouse Museum
in Sydney. He was criticised by NSW state politicians for continuing on the committee of the Australian Jockey Club
after his elevation to the bench, and in 1960 he was criticised for allegedly attending to AJC business to the neglect of his judicial duties. He was Vice-Chairman of the AJC 1953-61. When on the country court circuit, he was also rumoured to schedule early morning hearings so that he could attend race meetings in the afternoon.
Bill Dovey retired from the bench in 1964, and died on 12th December 1969 at the St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney
. His son William became a judge of the Family Court of Australia
, and his daughter Margaret
married Gough Whitlam
, later to become Prime Minister of Australia
1972-75. His wife died in 1978. His name is commemorated in Dovey Place in the suburb of Latham, Australian Capital Territory
.
Supreme Court of New South Wales
The Supreme Court of New South Wales is the highest state court of the Australian State of New South Wales...
in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
from 1953 to 1964. He was described as colourful, slightly eccentric and irascible, although he had a brilliant legal mind and a Shakespearean vocabulary. His daughter Margaret
Margaret Whitlam
Margaret Whitlam AO is a prominent Australian personality and the wife of former Prime Minister of Australia Gough Whitlam...
married the future Prime Minister of Australia
Prime Minister of Australia
The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
Gough Whitlam
Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...
.
Biography
Wilfred Robert Dovey was born in Bathurst, New South WalesBathurst, New South Wales
-CBD and suburbs:Bathurst's CBD is located on William, George, Howick, Russell, and Durham Streets. The CBD is approximately 25 hectares and surrounds two city blocks. Within this block layout is banking, government services, shopping centres, retail shops, a park* and monuments...
in 1894. His father Robert Dovey had been an assistant to William Farrer
William Farrer
William James Farrer was a leading Australian agronomist and plant breeder. Farrer is best remembered as the originator of the "Federation" strain of wheat, distributed in 1903...
. His mother Winifred Isabel Agnes, née Adams, was born in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. He studied at the Sydney Grammar School
Sydney Grammar School
Sydney Grammar School is an independent, non-denominational, selective, day school for boys, located in Darlinghurst, Edgecliff and St Ives, all suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia....
and the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
. He served in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
in New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
. He married Mary Dorothy Duncan four days before leaving for Rabaul
Rabaul
Rabaul is a township in East New Britain province, Papua New Guinea. The town was the provincial capital and most important settlement in the province until it was destroyed in 1994 by falling ash of a volcanic eruption. During the eruption, ash was sent thousands of metres into the air and the...
with the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force
Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force
The Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force was a small volunteer force of approximately 2,000 men, raised in Australia shortly after the outbreak of the First World War to seize and destroy German wireless stations in German New Guinea in the south-west Pacific...
in August 1914. After discharge in 1915, he taught at Brisbane Grammar School
Brisbane Grammar School
Brisbane Grammar School is an independent, non-denominational, day and boarding school for boys, located in Spring Hill, an inner suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia...
and studied law at the University of Queensland
University of Queensland
The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...
. He was admitted to the New South Wales Bar in 1922.
He was a keen rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
player. In 1928 he and some football-playing friends, in post-match liquor-fuelled high spirits, were reputed to have jumped across the then-unfinished spans of the Sydney Harbour Bridge
Sydney Harbour Bridge
The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a steel through arch bridge across Sydney Harbour that carries rail, vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian traffic between the Sydney central business district and the North Shore. The dramatic view of the bridge, the harbour, and the nearby Sydney Opera House is an iconic...
, 134 metres above the water.
He was appointed King's Counsel
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
in 1935. He was an alderman on the Waverley Municipal Council
Waverley Municipal Council
Waverley Municipal Council is a Local Government Area in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.- History :...
in 1935-36.
He was involved in a number of royal commissions and inquiries, such as those on doctors' remuneration for national insurance (1938), the detention of members of the Australia First Movement
Australia First Movement
Australia First Movement was a proto-fascist movement which grew out of the Rational Association and the Victorian Socialist Party. Adela Pankhurst Walsh, of the famous suffragette family was involved in it, along with W. J. Miles, Rhodes scholar Percy Stephensen, Xavier Herbert, as well as famous...
(1944) and Illegal Activities in the New South Wales Liquor Industry (1951–52); in the latter case he engaged his son-in-law Gough Whitlam
Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...
as his junior (Whitlam had married Dovey's daughter Margaret
Margaret Whitlam
Margaret Whitlam AO is a prominent Australian personality and the wife of former Prime Minister of Australia Gough Whitlam...
in 1942). Dovey represented many criminals in high profile court cases of the day, including the gangland figure, John Frederick "Chow" Hayes and the notorious Sydney identity, Kate Leigh
Kate Leigh
Catherine Mary Josephine Leigh was an underworld figure who rose to prominence as an illegal trader of alcohol and cocaine dealer in Surry Hills, Sydney, Australia during the first half of the twentieth century...
.
Bill Dovey was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales
Supreme Court of New South Wales
The Supreme Court of New South Wales is the highest state court of the Australian State of New South Wales...
in 1953. His cases included an early prosecution of Abe Saffron
Abe Saffron
Abraham Gilbert "Abe" Saffron was an Australian nightclub owner and property developer who was reputed to have been one of the major figures in Australian organised crime in the latter half of the 20th century....
. He was known for his short temper and he did not shrink from sharp criticisms in his judgments. In turn, he was often publicly criticised himself. For his conduct in the Royal Commission on the activities of the NSW Police, he was censured by the Bar Association
Bar association
A bar association is a professional body of lawyers. Some bar associations are responsible for the regulation of the legal profession in their jurisdiction; others are professional organizations dedicated to serving their members; in many cases, they are both...
of NSW for lacking tolerance and judicial calm and exhibiting "a great disservice to the bench and the legal profession"; he was also criticised by the Incorporated Law Institute for "departing from accepted standards of courtesy, fairness and patience". John Douglas Pringle, editor of The Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper's Sunday counterpart, The...
, condemned "the mean and shabby courtroom ... where the judge failed to preserve that august and aloof detachment which is his function and participated in the inquiry as though he was counsel engaged for an interested party".
He was a racehorse owner and was frequently seen at racecourses wearing his trademark top hat
Top hat
A top hat, beaver hat, high hat silk hat, cylinder hat, chimney pot hat or stove pipe hat is a tall, flat-crowned, broad-brimmed hat, predominantly worn from the latter part of the 18th to the middle of the 20th century...
and a monocle
Monocle
A monocle is a type of corrective lens used to correct or enhance the vision in only one eye. It consists of a circular lens, generally with a wire ring around the circumference that can be attached to a string. The other end of the string is then connected to the wearer's clothing to avoid losing...
. One of his top hats is now on display at the Powerhouse Museum
Powerhouse Museum
The Powerhouse Museum is the major branch of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney, the other being the historic Sydney Observatory...
in Sydney. He was criticised by NSW state politicians for continuing on the committee of the Australian Jockey Club
Australian Jockey Club
The Australian Jockey Club was founded in January 1842. It morphed from the former Australian Racing Committee set up in May 1840 to set the standards for racing in the colony...
after his elevation to the bench, and in 1960 he was criticised for allegedly attending to AJC business to the neglect of his judicial duties. He was Vice-Chairman of the AJC 1953-61. When on the country court circuit, he was also rumoured to schedule early morning hearings so that he could attend race meetings in the afternoon.
Bill Dovey retired from the bench in 1964, and died on 12th December 1969 at the St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney
St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney
St Vincent's Public Hospital, Sydney is located in the inner city suburb of Darlinghurst. Though part of the New South Wales state public health system it remains under the auspices of the Sisters of Charity.-History:...
. His son William became a judge of the Family Court of Australia
Family Court of Australia
The Family Court of Australia is a superior Australian federal court of record which deals with family law matters. Together with the Federal Magistrates Court, it covers family law matters in all states and territories of Australia except Western Australia...
, and his daughter Margaret
Margaret Whitlam
Margaret Whitlam AO is a prominent Australian personality and the wife of former Prime Minister of Australia Gough Whitlam...
married Gough Whitlam
Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...
, later to become Prime Minister of Australia
Prime Minister of Australia
The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
1972-75. His wife died in 1978. His name is commemorated in Dovey Place in the suburb of Latham, Australian Capital Territory
Latham, Australian Capital Territory
Latham is a residential suburb in the Canberra district of Belconnen. The suburb is named for John Latham, Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia from 1935 to 1952. Streets in Latham have the names of Australian judges....
.