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Josiah Symon arrived in South Australia from Scotland in 1866 just before his 20th birthday. His baggage included two boxes of books, references praising his primary school teaching and a few English pounds. In 1934 he left an estate valued in modern terms at $A 22 million.
Symon acquired his wealth as the acknowledged leader of the Adelaide Bar for 30 years, by investments in shares and property in London and Australia, and through his highly regarded vineyard and winery.
Knighted for contributions to the federal cause, Symon served in the House of Assembly (1881-1887) and in the Australian Senate (1901-1913) and was, briefly, both a State and a Commonwealth Attorney-General.
He headed a large family, owned an estate and working farm and was also a philanthropist, a bibliophile, Shakespearean scholar, president of cultural societies and a sought-after public speaker.
His contemporaries knew him as a major figure, but he is now mainly remembered, if at all, as a reactionary and a master of vituperation. To restore balance requires recognition that this largely self-made Scot, composed of many allegiances and contradictions, took principled stands which placed him ahead, alongside and behind his times.
About the author
Ian Hancock has written extensively on the political history of Uganda and of Southern Rhodesia/Rhodesia/Zimbabwe; and taught courses on imperial, colonial and African history at Monash University and on African, Australian and British history at the Australian National University. He has published many entries on Liberal Party figures for the Australian Dictionary of Biography, including one on former Prime Minister Harold Holt. He has also published full-length biographies of former Prime Minister Sir John Gorton, former NSW Premier Nick Greiner, former federal Attorney-General and long-term leader of the NSW Bar Tom Hughes, and of Gorton's controversial and trail-blazing staffer, Ainsley Gotto. He is presently completing a co-authored biography of a Public Service mandarin, Sir Frederick Wheeler, who had major confrontations with Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser.
