The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Innes, Hon. Sir Joseph George Long

1395377The Dictionary of Australasian Biography — Innes, Hon. Sir Joseph George LongPhilip Mennell

Innes, Hon. Sir Joseph George Long, Puisne Judge, New South Wales, eldest son of the late Joseph Long Innes, of Sydney, sometime captain 39th Foot, was born in Sydney on Oct. 16th, 1834, and educated at the King's School, Parramatta, N.S.W. He then went to England, and entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn in Nov. 1856; and, after winning a certificate of honour in May 1859, he was called to the bar in November of the same year. Having returned to Australia, he was admitted to the New South Wales bar in 1862, and practised till 1865, when he was appointed a district judge in Queensland. This position he resigned in 1869, and returned to practise his profession in Sydney. He also went into politics, and was returned to the Assembly in 1872, in May of which year he became Solicitor-General in the first Parkes Ministry, and in November of the next year Attorney-General in succession to the late Mr. Butler. Having been nominated to the Legislative Council in 1873, he continued to hold office as Attorney-General in the Parkes Ministry until the break-up of the Government in Feb. 1875. In the previous year he had accompanied Sir Hercules Robinson, the then Governor of New South Wales, on his special mission to Fiji, in connection with the annexation of the island to the British Crown, and was knighted in Jan. 1875 in recognition of his legal services on that occasion. Sir George acted as Chairman of Committees in the Legislative Council till August 1880, when he succeeded Mr. F. B. Suttor as Minister of Justice in the third Parkes Administration, this post he resigned in Oct. 1881, on being appointed a Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, a position which he still holds. Sir George married, in 1865, Emily Janet, daughter of Hon. John Smith, M.L.C., of Llanarth, Bathurst, N.S.W.