Albert Piddington

Albert Bathurst Piddington (9 September 1862 – 5 June 1945) was an Australian lawyer, politician and judge. He was a member of the High Court of Australia for one month in 1913, making him the shortest-serving judge in the court's history.

Piddington was born in Bathurst, New South Wales. He studied classics at the University of Sydney, and later combined his legal studies with teaching at Sydney Boys High School. Piddington was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1895, representing the Free Trade Party. He was defeated after a single term, and subsequently returned to his legal practice, becoming one of Sydney's best-known barristers. Piddington was sympathetic to the labour movement, and in April 1913 Andrew Fisher nominated him to the High Court as part of a court-packing attempt. His appointment was severely criticised, and he resigned a month later without ever sitting on the bench. Later in 1913, Piddington was made the inaugural chairman of the Inter-State Commission, serving until 1920. He was appointed King's Counsel in 1913, and remained a public figure into his seventies.

Piddington was born on 9 September 1862 in Bathurst, New South Wales. He was the third son born to Annie (née Burgess) and William Jones Killick Piddington. His father was born in England and arrived in the colony of Tasmania as a young man, where he was a Methodist lay preacher. His mother was born in Tasmania.

Piddington spent his early years in inner Sydney where his father was active in Methodist missionary work. His father eventually joined the Church of England and served as an ordained minister in various towns in country New South Wales, ending his career as an archdeacon at Tamworth. Piddington completed his secondary education at Sydney Grammar School. He went on to attend the University of Sydney, graduating Bachelor of Arts in 1883 and winning the university medal in classics.

After graduating from university, Piddington taught Latin and Greek for a period at the newly created Sydney High School. He subsequently read for the bar and was admitted as a barrister in 1890, serving as a judge's associate under William Windeyer for a period. Piddington joined the University of Sydney's faculty in 1889 as a lecturer in English literature. In 1892 he published Sir Roger de Coverley, a collection of 18th-century essays from The Spectator. The following year he edited a new edition of the fifth and sixth books of John Milton's Paradise Lost, which he titled The Fall of Satan. His edition included a discussion of the historical background of Milton's work in the context of Puritanism.

Piddington first stood for parliament at the 1894 New South Wales general election, running on a radical platform against incumbent premier George Dibbs. He resigned his lectureship at the University of Sydney to contest the election, following the university senate's decision that it would decline to grant him leave; it was rumoured that Dibbs had pressured the senate to do so. Piddington was defeated by Dibbs at the election in the Legislative Assembly seat of Tamworth, although Dibbs lost his majority in the assembly and was replaced as premier by George Reid, leading an alliance of the Free Trade and Labor groups.

In 1895, Reid called an early election following obstruction of his legislative agenda by conservatives in the Legislative Council. Piddington reprised his candidacy against Dibbs in Tamworth and was narrowly elected as a Free Trader, in what was regarded as a "highlight of the Reidites' triumph". With his parliamentary term beginning on 24 July 1895, Piddington was subsequently chosen by Reid to move the address-in-reply in the first session of the new parliament. In his maiden speech and other parliamentary speeches he supported federation of the Australian colonies, reform of the Legislative Council, free trade, and a land tax based on Georgist principles. In 1895 he opposed the inclusion of a marriage bar in the Reid government's Public Service Bill, describing it as "antediluvian". According to his biographer Michael Roe, "his ideas were akin to Labor but membership of any party probably repelled him; he grasped Reid's good points, but the personality gap between himself and that dominating figure of the day was immense".

In spite of his support of Federation, Piddington was highly critical of the draft federal constitution adopted by the second constitutional convention in 1897 and campaigned for the "No" vote in the 1898 New South Wales referendum. In his view the draft constitution had succumbed to provincialism and would result in a Senate that was too powerful and undemocratic. Piddington's views likely contributed to his defeat in Tamworth after a single parliamentary term at the 1898 general election. Following Federation, he stood again in Tamworth at the 1901 election, but was again unsuccessful.