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EVIL HISTORY UNCOVERED
Headline over Alan Ramsey’s latest column: “A journey into Downer’s dark past”. Here’s the foreign minister’s alleged past of darkness:
The patriarch of the Downer family was Henry Downer, an immigrant tailor who arrived in Adelaide from England in 1838. Henry had several sons, among them John William, born in 1843, Henry Edward, and George. John William went on to get free secondary schooling by scholarship at Adelaide’s Collegiate School of St Peter, “where he proved brilliant”, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography.
John William was later articled to brother Henry Edward, admitted to the South Australian Bar in 1867, and, with elder brother George, a prominent pastoralist, founded the “leading legal firm, J. and G. Downer”. John entered state politics in 1878, became attorney-general in 1881 and was twice premier of his state - 1885-87 and 1892-93. At Federation in 1901 - by then Sir John Downer - he became one of South Australia’s six original senators but resigned in December 1903 after missing appointment to the founding High Court.
John Downer died in 1915. He was twice married and survived by a son from each marriage. The son of his second marriage was Alexander Russell Downer, later a cabinet minister in the Menzies government in 1949 and, as Sir Alexander, Australian high commissioner to London in 1964. He, too, sired a son, Alexander John Gosse Downer, briefly Opposition leader in 1994 and John Howard’s Foreign Minister for all of the last nine years as his reward for stepping down for Howard.
And what is it we learn of this distinguished family history in Roberts’s book on this country’s ruthless savagery by 19th-century pastoralists towards indigenous people? On pages 133 and 134 Roberts recounts how the notorious Constable Willshire, at his Port Augusta acquittal on multiple murder charges in 1891, was defended by the Foreign Minister’s grandfather, “Sir John Downer, QC, former attorney-general and premier, with funds contributed by more than 60 supporters from Central Australia”.
Most of it probably from our early land barons and their hirelings.
Alexander Downer’s dark past: his grandfather was a lawyer.
MY GOD! This could bring down the government!
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 05 31 at 10:26 PM • permalinkObviously the sins of the Fathers are carried by all their descendants. Good thing Ramsey and his ilk have no disreputable ancestors, eh?
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2005 05 31 at 10:27 PM • permalinkWell, that lawyer business IS kind of hard to live down, but while it is a bit annoying to have a blighted branch on the ol’ family tree, it doesn’t mean the tree itself isn’t fundamentally sound. I mean, I’m relieved that there haven’t been any outbreaks of attorneys in my own family history, but I do have to admit to two probable lunatics, a bootlegger, and at least one Kerry voter (make that three probable lunatics). No reason to believe that the sins of the father, etc.
My past is dark; my grandfather was a lawyer, as well.
A noted one, in fact; who is on this page.
Posted by Tony.T.Teacher on 2005 05 31 at 10:42 PM • permalinkHmmm.
I have a few “rum runners”, people who transported illegal booze during the Prohibition days, in my family tree.
I’m tainted forever with evil! EVIL!
sob.
Posted by memomachine on 2005 05 31 at 11:07 PM • permalinkOmigod!
My brother is a lawyer.
My ancestors drank illegal booze.
I’m ruined! Ruined!
I mean, that bastard! Defending an accused criminal. Thank god our progressive betters are here to tell us we aren’t entitled to that.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 05 31 at 11:17 PM • permalinkHas Alan Ramsey given his house back to the aborigines yet?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 05 31 at 11:21 PM • permalinkSo this lawyer walks into a bar ....
Pushes open the kitchen doors and yells at the guy flipping burgers, “Pour me a Scotch and soda!”The guy flipping burgers just looks at him and says, “Dude… I’m the cook. The drinks are back that way.”
And the lawyer says, “Well, Duh! I’m a lawyer, of course I passed the bar.”
tankewe tankewe tankewe
John Marsden was putting himself up as one of the lawyers for Saddam. Don’t know where that is currently. Did Ramsey have anything to say about it at the time?
It can only be assumed that as defendents aren’t entitled to a defence when their “guilt” is clear before hand, he finds our judicial system an utter waste of time. So why do we need lawyers at all. Make do with just sentencing judges, or perhaps just let the court of public opinion decide. Well clearly not the rednecks.
Which leaves, Ramsey and his mates.Ramsey is a good reminder as to why one cannot be complacent about democracy. Lower your guard and the Ramsey’s of this world would have us disenfrancheised and equality under the law gone. Clearly the rule of law is an utterly obscure notion for him.
I might have a distant relative who was a member of the nazi party during WW2 (unusual surname and he appears every time I google for family). Guess that is alright though because it is only the distinguished that should show better sense in their choice of ancestors, particularly avoiding those who didn’t work out what would be a politically incorrect action 100 years in the future.
If this is all Ramsey could dig up, he needs to consider a career washing dishes, flipping burgers, or pumping gasoline. That’s about his level.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 06 01 at 01:50 AM • permalinkDowner’s FATHER apparently had a very admirable record as a Japanese POW in Changi. A former teacher, he organised classes for the prisoners, and many said later that giving them this interest helped them to stay alive.
Posted by Susan Norton on 2005 06 01 at 02:18 AM • permalinkMore Downer dark past:
His father was the foreign minister who overturned the infamous “dictation test” for immigrants, repealing a bit of infamous racist immigration law which the ALP held close to its heart.
Evil bastard, eh.
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 06 01 at 02:33 AM • permalinkMy father was a lawyer, so is my brother - does this mean I’m doomed to burn in hell for all eternity along with the rest of my family?
From ‘Outback Voices’:
‘Mounted Constable W. H. Willshire was charged with the murder of two natives – Donkey and Roger – at Tempe Downs on February 22, 1891. He was brought before Mr F. J. Gillen, JP, who committed him for trial ... at Port Augusta ... Sir John Downer ... questioned the powers and conduct of Mr Gillen in his investigation ... Nothing is mentioned of Willshire’s skill in recording the languages of natives in ... the Gordon Creek and Lake Amadeus areas ... It is very easy to sit in the comfort of one’s modern home ... and pass judgement on departed Territorians as a means to their own personal opinion or preferences.”
Iain Morrison explained: “The majority of the so-called ‘evidence’ trotted out against Willshire ... consists of uncorroborated statements by Hermannsburg missionaries ... during the parliamentary enquiry conducted by H. Swan and G. Taplin ... himself a missionary ...”
Frank J. Gillen, JP, of the Alice Springs telegraph station, decided to investigate Willshire’s activities around the Boggy Waterhole police camp and Tempe Downs Station. Gillen was subsequently instrumental in having the policeman committed for trial, even though his informants were later deemed liars, and the JP was soundly criticised for not having interviewed Willshire himself prior to pressing charges.Writing in 1896, Willshire said he failed to comprehend why Mr F. Gillen had exhibited “such venom” against him.
“I could never see why that man had such a set on me, “he observed.
In a newspaper article (1895), Willshire again addressed the matter, noting: “It appears that South Australian law is so constructed that an executive officer ... in command of a police detachment, can be seized upon a warrant issued by a single Justice of the Peace, removed from command, sent away in irons and committed for trial without the least legal evidence of guilt, upon bare statements by natives made in the absence of the accused ...”
Interestingly, Gillen, in collaboration with anthropologist, Baldwin Spencer, was engaged in very similar research in Aboriginal lore, as was Willshire himself. One cannot help but wonder to what extent was professional rivalry, and territorial jealousies, involved in Gillen’s persecution of the policeman. By denigrating the man in public, would this then have a negative effect on Willshire’s publications, as well as lessen his credibility as a serious researcher?”Guess Ramsey didnt read this story.
Or this one.
‘In 1905 Senior Constable Willshire of Hergott Springs applied for a room to be built to shelter the aboriginal tracker who” sleeps in a tank in the stables.”’
I’ve been to the old police yards at Gordon Creek. You can still see them to this day. Lovely bit of country. Worth fighting for whatever colour you are.
Posted by James Hamilton on 2005 06 01 at 03:46 AM • permalinkRussell Braddon (who wrote “The Naked Island” in 1952 - sold 2.5 million copies worldwide) was in Changi with Downer’s father.
Alex senior ran the Changi library and was, by Braddon’s account, one of the mainstays of the fight to preserve the captives’ sanity.
From a sneering commenter at TD a while back, that is How Downer would have gone on about it if he had been there.
That Ramsey places so little value on what for most Australians would make Downer senior one of Australia’s honoured is an insult to all of those men who lived and died in Changi.
Many would think it was an event in that family of great distinction. Yet it is of lesser importance than the fact that Alexander’s grandfather was a defence lawyer.
The guy is a ...#22 Susan Norton, no, sadly Alexander Downer has a further dark secret, no doubt to be exposed in Alan Ramsey’s next article, for his father Alexander Russell Downer, was also a lawyer, a barrister no less. The shame of it.
What’s more, and this will be Ramsey’s next scoop, such was his family’s privilege and influence that he obtained the exalted rank of private when, at age 29, he enlisted in the army in 1939. By the time he was taken prisoner of war of the Japanese in 1942 he had risen to the dizzy heights of being a Gunner in the Australian Artillery. Such a dark past!
Ramsey writes a whole article inspired by Alexander Downer’s interest in World War 2 and writes about his grandfather, who died in 1915, but doesn’t mention, except in passing, his father, who actually served in it. Truly amazing!
Downer’s father’s record as a POW was mentioned by Hal Colebatch in an article in The Australian om 9 August last year. Ramsay has no excusde for not knowing it.
Posted by Susan Norton on 2005 06 01 at 07:05 AM • permalinkyojimbo: Lawyers are also useful in lab experiments because the grad students who take care of them never become attached to lawyers the way they do to the rats, so when a lawyer has to be pithed no one really cares.
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2005 06 01 at 09:01 AM • permalinkSounds like we have a case here to drag Downer up before a People’s Court…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 06 01 at 10:48 AM • permalink. . .the hell? I dimly recall a similar article in a British paper which traced Bush’s heritage back to some bloodthirsty barbarian or other, back in the mists of time. I suppose it’s less absurd to look up a guy’s family history back to his grandfather than it is to trace it back to the era of Genghis Khan, but what in the name of almighty crap is the deal with trying to prove that—what—your political opponents have ‘bad blood’?
...crimes against nature…
What, ALL of it? Boy don’t think small…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 06 02 at 01:29 PM • permalinkPrediction 1: Ramsey’s column in next weeks broadsheets will implicate the Downers with the Kennedy assassination.
See where this is going folks?
Downer will then have a connection to Texas which would of course imply a direct involvement by the Bush family and the neoconservative imperialist plot to rule the world.Prediction 2: In the face of this irrefutable evidence Bush and Howard cut a deal with Ramsey to keep this secret for the next 30 years on the condition that they ratify the Kyoto Protocol before the weekend.
Tell your friends you heard it here first!!
Posted by Hank Reardon on 2005 06 02 at 07:44 PM • permalinkWhich Kennedy assassination> John F. or Graham? Probably both.
Posted by Susan Norton on 2005 06 02 at 11:07 PM • permalinkHank Reardon — Never mind that. They’re gonna reveal the Downer family’s real last name is Fawkes…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 06 02 at 11:34 PM • permalink#45 Susan Norton I could also have been referring to Ted Kennedy.
Theory: The Downers being close to the Borossa Valley Wine Country have been in a long standing intergenerational plot with leading wine makers the world over to assassinate Ted Kennedy through liver cirrhosis.Posted by Hank Reardon on 2005 06 03 at 01:56 AM • permalinkFrom what I’ve read, it’s a story that shouldn’t been published in a major Australian newspaper at all. I assume Alan Ramsey has carte blanche in getting his columns into print. Even as an OP, there isn’t a story to connect to the headline. The only goodness to come from his article is the history that he, and especially this thread, has revealed. I love history, the warts and all of it.
But to judge someone from their forebears is not fair. I’m sure Alexander Downer is proud of his family, and so am I of my family. But I don’t get judged on what my father has achieved, which in his field has been exemplary. I’m judged on what I do and have done. And Alexander should be subject to the same standard.
This thread has been interesting, especially the historical information that was thrown into the debate which I didn’t know. As I said once before, you learn a lot at Tims.
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Oh boy! Can’t wait to see the SMH’s letters to the editor from the legal fraternity.
Ramsay must be on something. No one could be that breathtakingly stupid naturally.