Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs (6 August 1855 – 11 February 1948) was an Australian lawyer, politician, and judge who served as the ninth governor-general of Australia, in office from 1931 to 1936. He was both the first Australian-born and the first Jewish Governor-General of Australia. He had previously served on the High Court of Australia from 1906 to 1931, including as Chief Justice from 1930.
Isaacs was born in Melbourne and grew up in Yackandandah and Beechworth. He began working as a schoolteacher at the age of 15, and later moved to Melbourne to work as a clerk and studied law part-time at the University of Melbourne. Isaacs was admitted to the bar in 1880, and soon became one of Melbourne's best-known barristers. He was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly in 1892, and subsequently served as Solicitor-General under James Patterson, and Attorney-General under George Turner and Alexander Peacock.
Isaacs entered the new federal parliament at the 1901 election, representing the Protectionist Party. He became Attorney-General of Australia in 1905, under Alfred Deakin, but the following year left politics in order to become a justice of the High Court. Isaacs was often in the minority in his early years on the court, particularly with regard to federalism, where he advocated the supremacy of the Commonwealth Government. The balance of the court eventually shifted, and he famously authored the majority opinion in the Engineers case of 1920, which abolished the reserved powers doctrine and fully established the paramountcy of Commonwealth law.
In 1930, Prime Minister James Scullin appointed Isaacs as Chief Justice, in succession to Sir Adrian Knox. Later that year, Scullin nominated Isaacs as his preferred choice for governor-general. The selection of an Australian (rather than the usual British aristocrat) was unprecedented and highly controversial. King George V was opposed to the idea but eventually consented, and Isaacs took office in January 1931 as the first Australian-born holder of the office. He was the first governor-general to live full-time at Yarralumla, and throughout his five-year term was popular among the public for his frugality during the Depression. Isaacs was Australia's first Jewish High Court Justice and the first Jewish Chief Justice of Australia, in addition to being the first Jewish Governor-General of Australia.
Isaacs was the son of Alfred Isaacs, a tailor of Jewish ancestry from the town of Mława, Poland. Seeking better prospects, Alfred left Poland and worked his way across Germany, spending some months in Berlin and Frankfurt. By 1845 he had passed through Paris and arrived to work in London, where he met the London-born Rebecca Abrahams; the two married in 1849. After news of the 1851 Victorian gold rush reached England, Australia became a very popular destination and the Isaacs decided to emigrate. By 1854 they had saved enough for the fare, departing from Liverpool in June 1854 and arriving in Melbourne in September. Some time after arriving the Isaacs moved into a cottage and shopfront in Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, where Alfred continued his tailoring. Isaac Alfred Isaacs was born in this cottage on 6 August 1855. His family moved to various locations around Melbourne while he was young, then in 1859 moved to Yackandandah in northern Victoria, close to family friends. At this time Yackandandah was a gold mining settlement of 3,000 people.
Isaac was the eldest of six children. His brother John A. Isaacs, who later became a solicitor and Victorian Member of Parliament, and sisters Carolyn and Hannah were all born in Yackandandah. A brother was born in Melbourne, and another sister was born in Yackandandah, but both died very young. His first formal schooling was from sometime after 1860 at a small private establishment. At eight he won the school arithmetic prize, winning his photograph by the schoolmaster, who was also a photographer and bootmaker. Yackandandah state school was opened in 1863 and Isaacs enrolled as a pupil. Here he excelled academically, particularly in arithmetic and languages, though he was a frequent truant, walking off to spend time in the nearby mining camps. To help Isaacs gain a better quality education, in 1867, his family moved to nearby Beechworth first enrolling him in the Common school then in the Beechworth Grammar School. He excelled at the Grammar School, becoming dux in his first year and winning many academic prizes. In his second year he was employed part-time as an assistant teacher at the school, and took up after school tutoring of fellow students. In September 1870, when Isaacs was just 15 years old, he passed his examination as a pupil teacher and taught at the school from then until 1873. Isaacs was next employed as an assistant teacher at the Beechworth State School, the successor to the Common school.
While employed at the State School, Isaacs had his first experience of the law, as an unsuccessful litigant in an 1875 County Court case. He disputed a payment arrangement with the headmaster of his school, resigning as part of the dispute. After returning to teaching, now back at the Grammar School, he expanded his interest in the law; reading law books and attending court sittings.
As a child Isaacs became fluent in Russian, which his parents spoke frequently, as well as English and some German. Isaacs later gained varying degrees of proficiency in Italian, French, Greek, Hindustani and Chinese.
In 1875, Isaacs moved to Melbourne and found work at the Prothonotary's Office of the Law Department. In 1876, while still working full-time, he began studying law part time at the University of Melbourne. He graduated with first-class honours in 1880 and was called to the bar that same year. He began practicing law in 1882 and wrote court reports for the press to supplement his income. He obtained a Master of Laws degree in 1883. His law practice became successful and by 1890 he was taking briefs on behalf of clients such as banks, the stock exchange, land and finance companies, and local authorities, and appeared before the Full Supreme Court nineteen times that year. During the 1890s he appeared in cases involving tort, contract, insurance, insolvency, mining, and local government law. He took silk as a Queen's Counsel in 1899.
In 1892 Isaacs was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly as a liberal. He was the member for Bogong from May 1892 until May 1893 and between June 1893 and May 1901. In 1893 he became Solicitor-General in the Patterson ministry. From 1894 to 1899 he was Attorney-General in the Turner ministry, and served as acting Premier on some occasions. In 1897 he was elected to the convention to approve the terms of the Australian Constitution. However, he was not elected to the committee drafting the constitution; Alfred Deakin attributed this failure to "a plot discreditable to all engaged in it" and thought that this antagonising and humiliating snub sharpened Isaacs's "tendency to minute technical criticism ... so as to bring him not infrequently into collision" with the committee. Isaacs had many reservations about the draft constitution, but he campaigned in support of it after the Australian Natives' Association gave the draft its full support, rejecting his plea to delay for further consideration.
Isaacs was elected to the first federal Parliament in 1901 to the seat of Indi as a critical supporter of Edmund Barton and his Protectionist government. He was one of a group of backbenchers pushing for more radical policies and he earned the dislike of many of his colleagues through what they saw as his aloofness and rather self-righteous attitude to politics.
Alfred Deakin appointed Isaacs Attorney-General in 1905 but he was a difficult colleague and in 1906 Deakin was keen to get him out of politics by appointing him to the High Court bench. He was the first serving minister to resign from the parliament.
On the High Court, Isaacs joined H. B. Higgins as a radical minority on the court in opposition to the chief justice, Sir Samuel Griffith. He served on the court for 24 years. During his time on the court, Isaacs and Higgins were frequently a dissenting minority. Griffith and Sir Edmund Barton both strongly disliked Isaacs and opposed his constitutional interpretations. Isaacs was one of the earliest Australian federal judges to recognise the social implications of decision-making, and spelled out social and economic policies in his judgments. While on long leave in the United Kingdom, Isaacs was sworn of the Privy Council in 1921. He became a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council three years later. Isaacs was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in the King's Birthday Honours of 1928 for his service on the High Court. Isaacs is one of only eight justices of the High Court to have served in the Parliament of Australia prior to his appointment to the court; the others were Edmund Barton, Richard O'Connor, H. B. Higgins, Edward McTiernan, John Latham, Garfield Barwick, and Lionel Murphy. He was also one of two to have served in the Parliament of Victoria, along with Higgins. In April 1930, the Labor Prime Minister, James Scullin, appointed the 75-year-old Isaacs as chief justice, succeeding Sir Adrian Knox.