Australian Historical Medals

Lot 848    Session 4 (4:30pm Tuesday 31 July)    Australian Historical Medals

Estimate $200
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $1,000

SCHOOL PRIZE MEDAL TO NSW JUDGE, Ireland, Trinity College Dublin prize medal for Letters & Humanities, 1856, in silver (51mm), obverse, Elizabeth I bust three-quarters facing, legend, 'COLL.SS.ET.INDIVID.TRIN.REC.ELIZABETH/E.JVXTA.DVBL.1591', reverse, College coat of arms on shamrock patterned background, rose and portcullis flanking, legend, 'ETHICS ET LOCICIS FELICITER EXCULTIS', inscribed at base, 'OWEN GULIELMUS. 1856.' Toned, a few small edge nicks, otherwise good very fine.

Together with one half of the medal case.

The recipient's name on the medal is recorded with the surname in English and the first name in Latin, as was the common practice at the time of recording names in Ireland in Parish records. His name in English is William Owen.

Sir William Owen (1834-1912) was born on 4 November 1834 at Marlfield, Gorey, Wexford, Ireland, the fourth son of Colonel Robert Owen, 72nd Highlanders, and his wife Charlotte (McCarthy). He was educated at Cheltenham College, Gloucestershire, England 1848-52 and at Trinity College, Dublin (B.A., 1857), where he won a silver medal for ethics and logics, the above medal, and a prize for English verse. In 1859 he became a student at King's Inn, Dublin, and subsequently he studied at Lincoln's Inn, London and in due course was called to the Irish Bar. On 6 March 1860 he married Elizabeth Charlotte (Carey) in Dublin and they migrated to Sydney, NSW, Australia where he was admitted to the colonial Bar on 7 September of that same year.

William developed a comprehensive grasp of the law in all its branches but he was a specialist in Equity. He was commissioner of the Court of Claims from 1861 to 1887. He also was appointed Under-secretary of the Colonial Secretary's Department on 16 June 1865 but resigned early in the following year. It was in this year on 11 January when his wife and elder son were drowned when the British steamship SS London foundered in the Bay of Biscay while en route from England to Australia. In 1868 he first suggested reforms in Equity procedure and in 1870, assisted by Sir Alfred Stephen and Sir William Manning, he drew up a bill for the law reform commission, which was twice introduced but unsuccessful on both occasions. On 3 July 1875 at Hunters Hill Owen married Florence Levick, but she died next year. Owen, however pressed on with his attempt to reform the Equity procedure and his evidence helped to convince the 1880 Legislative Assembly select committee that the Equity jurisdiction was 'dilatory, expensive, ruinous to suitors and not in accord with the judicial progress of the age'. The Equity Act of 1880 was based on his draft.

In 1882 William Owen became a Queen's Counsellor and by June of the following year he was acknowledged as one of the leaders of the common law Bar after successfully winning an important damages claim case against distinguished opposing counsel led by W. B. Dalley. On 18 October 1887 Owen was appointed to the Supreme Court bench as Chief Judge in Equity. In November 1896 he transferred to the common law jurisdiction and was also Deputy-Judge Commissary in the Vice-Admiralty Court.

He filled the post of President of several Royal Commissions, one such commission in 1892 cleared E. M. G. Eddy, chief commissioner of railways, of charges of maladministration. Then in 1905-07 he was sole royal commissioner on the administration of the Lands Department. He was knighted in 1906 and on 1 February 1908 he resigned his position as Supreme Court Judge and retired. Sir William Owen died at his residence, Ellesmere, at Hunters Hill, Sydney on 22 November 1912 and was buried in the Anglican section of Waverley Cemetery.

Sir William's grandson, W.C.Owen, married into the family of another notable lawyer, Judge Tom Rolin (see lot 854).