The toast was proposed by Charles Lowe (later Sir Charles Lowe), then a justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria and subsequently Chancellor of Melbourne University between 1941 and 1954, and was also supported by Justice Owen Dixon of the High Court and Professor Kenneth Bailey, then Dean of Melbourne Law School.5 Interestingly, William had appeared in cases as senior to Lowe and as junior to Dixon before they were elevated to the bench. Toylaan remembered his final words: "Unity is strength.". In the 1970 book The Measure of the Years by Australia's longest-serving prime minister, Robert Menzies, he referred to his colleague and friend Ah Ket as "a phenomenon at the Victorian Bar" but that "a certain prejudice among clients against having a Chinese barrister to an extent limited his practice . James_Michael, Hm qua, lc 22:28. William moved to Melbourne in 1893 to study law at Melbourne University, and was formally admitted to the Victorian Bar in 1904. Prior to completing He fought against the requirements of the 1907 Factories (Employment of Chinese) Act, which discriminated against . theatre-goers during the "Gay 20s" before the Depression. Educated in both English and Chinese cultures, he agitated against racial intolerance in Victoria and defended the rights of Victoria`s Chinese community. the social, business and sporting circles of Melbourne in 5 Law Students Society Dinner to Sir Harrison Moore, Farrago 5(5), April 23, 1929. The reason why the Chinese laundry owner had been charged was that a Chinese man had been found in the laundry between 9 and 10 pm at night ironing a shirt, apparently in breach of the after-hours work prohibition. AALA acknowledges the past and continuing trauma caused by mistreatment and displacement. Wu was born in the Straits Settlement in 1842. This article originally appeared on the Melbourne Law School website on May 20, 2020. Ah Kets legal team successfully proved that the Chinese man was not an employee of the laundry but instead a boarder at the laundry who had simply been ironing his own shirt! ROMEO Ha az lom hzelked emnek Hinnem lehet, mindjrt rm knt rm. William stayed involved with the University and was elected the President of the Law Students Society on 19 April 1907.4 Some 20 years later, in 1929, William supported a toast in favour of Sir Harrison Moore, the third Dean of Melbourne Law School, at a dinner hosted by the Law Students Society to mark Sir Harrisons retirement in 1927. He advocated and promoted peaceful coexistence.8 His answer to the difficulties he faced appears to have been to succeed in what he did; to be a real part of the legal profession; to help others and to act at all times righteously, with courage and with kindness. 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In addition, William Ah Ket possessed a deep knowledge of the Western classics and modern languages and was wont to include quotes from Shakespeare, the Scottish poet Robert Burns or a Gilbert & Sullivan opera during his appearances in court!17. The story of William Ah Ket is a significant one in the history of the Australian legal profession. His father had taken him to China when he was about five years old. The Inaugural G.E. 3See William Lye OAM, Introduction to William Ah Ket at the Victorian Bar and Scholarship (William Ah Ket Inaugural Scholarship Launch at Maddocks, 21 November 2017), available athttps://static1.squarespace.com/static/54dd81c6e4b074b4a339bb2e/t/5a1409caf9619a97a1396f77/1511262667464/WILLIAM+AH+KET+launch.pdf. Australias first Chinese barrister William Ah Ket was born in the Victorian country town of Wangaratta. Popular among the press reporters and cartoonists of his William Ah Ket became a leading figure in the Chinese Australian community during the early years of Federation. The act expressly discriminated against the Chinese and prohibited after-hours work in a factory or work-room where furniture was made or where any Chinese person was at any time employed. of Commerce to represent Victoria at the Conference of Overseas William Ah Ket was born on month day 1876, at birth place, to Mah Ah Ket and Hing Ah Ket (born Ung). Fast forward 90 years to 9 October 2019 when an audience of some 50 persons are gathered in the Great Hall of the High Court of Australia to attend the third award ceremony for the William Ah Ket Scholarship a scholarship established by the Asian Australian Lawyers Association in 2017 and supported by Maddocks. "He played the game of affluence and gambling and carding and living it up," she recalled. "There was definitely a fresh wave of discrimination that was being put in place," she says. Despite Ah Ket's legal nous, he still faced prejudice, often from his own clients. as the local 'mandarin' and Law Courts Interpreter, and prospered Church to a young Australian woman, Gertrude Bullock, whose to Australia, William Ah Ket was appointed as Acting Consul-General He specialised in civil law and acquired a considerable reputation as a negotiator of settlements. Please send any press releases, deal announcements, details of new hires, newsletters and any other news items to: Copyright 2022 Vantage Asia Publishing Limited. alleviation of all unreasonable conditions imposed on the He went on to live in China for several years. would increase friendship and understanding between the people Burns or Gilbert & Sullivan. "Remembering William Ah Ket is about remembering these rights were fought for they weren't just given by the benevolent government," she says. Over time the costs of maintaining this website have risen substantially (in fact they are probably larger than those of many companies who exist for profit). barrister to practice in Melbourne. Asian Studies Program level and not merely through trade. William was particularly active in the fight against racial discrimination and appeared in many 'public interest' cases. Gertrudewas born on July 11 1887, in Clifton Hill, Victoria, Australia. 16Isabel Carter, Woman in a Wig: Joan Rosanove, QC (Lansdowne Press, 1970), 13. This panel discusses the role of Asian Australians in the legal profession in the past and today, including the challenges faced by Asian Australian lawyers. The International Who's Who: 1984/85, 2004, "William Ah Ket - Building Bridges between Occident and Orient in Australia, 1900-1936*", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Ah_Ket&oldid=1136723876, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 31 January 2023, at 20:35. "Winning the inaugural William Ah Ket Scholarship brings me great pride and satisfaction, owing to the scholarship's underlying purpose of fostering the development and promotion of cultural diversity in the Australian legal profession. live, learn and work. 5 Law Students Society Dinner to Sir Harrison Moore, Farrago 5(5), April 23, 1929. 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"They were about making sure Chinese were on view, they were really pretty abhorrent," she says. After reading with (Sir) Stewart McArthur, government's repeated attempts in 1904, 1905 and 1907 to make The Asian Australian Lawyers After living in China for many years, he returned to Australia as an adult but was treated as a prohibited immigrant because he failed a dictation test imposed by the immigration legislation at the time. in Chisholm Street. William was born in 1876, in the north-east Victorian town of Wangaratta one of eight children. He became the leading Chinese in the district and a respected member of the Wangaratta community. A former partner of Linklaters Shanghai, Andrew Godwin teaches law at Melbourne Law School in Australia, where he is an associate director of its Asian Law Centre. William Penrod Davis, age 80+, lives in Eagle Mountain, UT. In its decision, the High Court found that if the immigration legislation had intended to remove the rights of citizenship, it should have expressed its intention clearly. From this summary of his early achievements, it is clear that William was a gifted student and lawyer, who succeeded in a time rife with racial discrimination. "Given the Commonwealth only formed in 1901, you wouldn't expect someone [of Chinese descent] within a few years of that to have been admitted," Mr Tang says. William's personal interests were widely diversified. Ah Ket appeared in another High Court case calledPotter v Minahan.12 In that case, Ah Ket represented a man who was born in Australia of a Chinese father and a white Australian mother. Was formally admitted to the Victorian Bar in 1904, April 23,.... ), April 23, 1929 were really pretty abhorrent, '' she says the and. Ket & # x27 ; s legal nous, He still faced prejudice, often from his clients... 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