'Graham Berry (1822-1904) was colonial Australia’s most gifted, creative and controversial politician. A riveting speaker, a newspaper proprietor and editor, and the founder of Australia’s first mass political party, he wielded these tools to launch an age of reform: spearheading the adoption of a ‘protectionist’ economic policy, the payment of parliamentarians, and the taxing of large landowners. He also sought the reform of the Constitution, precipitating a crisis that the London Times likened to a ‘revolution’. This book recovers Berry’s forgotten and fascinating life. It explores his drives and aspirations, the scandals and defeats that nearly derailed his career, and his remarkable rise from linen-draper and grocer to adored popular leader. It establishes his formative influence on later Australian politics. And it also uses Berry’s life to reflect on the possibilities and constraints of democratic politics, hoping thereby to enrich the contemporary political imagination.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'Sean Scalmer's biography of Graham Berry (1822–1904) is “an act of historical recovery”, reclaiming Berry — Premier of Victoria in 1875, 1877–1880, and 1880–1881 — as “the most important and influential reformer of a dauntless reforming age”. Scalmer's narrative captures the compressed, volatile dynamics of Victorian colonial politics as Berry, judged “an extreme liberal” on his first election to the Legislative Assembly in 1861, became the most effective advocate for the protectionist principles which would long influence Australian policy and political debate. Applying the fine-grained attention to the “textures” of political activism that characterises his work, Scalmer revives our appreciation of the “political experiment” of colonial Victoria, not least as a source of inspiration “for our own beleaguered polity”.' (Introduction)
'Sean Scalmer's biography of Graham Berry (1822–1904) is “an act of historical recovery”, reclaiming Berry — Premier of Victoria in 1875, 1877–1880, and 1880–1881 — as “the most important and influential reformer of a dauntless reforming age”. Scalmer's narrative captures the compressed, volatile dynamics of Victorian colonial politics as Berry, judged “an extreme liberal” on his first election to the Legislative Assembly in 1861, became the most effective advocate for the protectionist principles which would long influence Australian policy and political debate. Applying the fine-grained attention to the “textures” of political activism that characterises his work, Scalmer revives our appreciation of the “political experiment” of colonial Victoria, not least as a source of inspiration “for our own beleaguered polity”.' (Introduction)
