The White Hat Guide to Sir Redmond Barry

Statue of Sir Redmond Barry outside the State Library of Victoria

Sir Redmond Barry
Judge, benefactor
7 June 1813 - 23 November 1880

Possibly no person better represents the contrasts and contradictions of early Melbourne than Judge Redmond Barry.

He was a pillar of the community making pronouncements on moral matters. Yet he never married the woman who bore him four children.

He was often merciless in his application of the law. He would not allow the convicts who murdered John Price to have a defence counsel, and tried to invoke the charge of treason for those involved in the Eureka Stockade. If Ned Kelly is to be believed, Barry's treatment of Ned's mother was harsh and unjust. Yet the same man had chosen to represent aborigines in his early days as a lawyer. He also campaigned for a free library, and allowed members of the public to use his own private library until Melbourne Public Library (now called the State Library of Victoria) was opened. (I don't think anyone attempted to steal a book from 'the hanging judge'.) He was also a promoter of the Royal Society, the Melbourne Hospital and the Philharmonic Society.

At the age of 26 he sailed for Australia, and was soon confined to his cabin because of his open affair with a married woman. Yet he was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court by the age of 38.

When he arrived in the Colony of Port Phillip in 1839 as a young Irish lawyer, Melbourne was a 'wild west' village at the end of the earth. By the time he died in 1880, Melbourne was a significant world city with great buildings and boulevards, and he was its chief judge and Chancellor of its university.

His statue, erected 7 years after he died, now stands outside the State Library.

Because Redmond Barry embodies so much of the development of early Melbourne, we choose to end the Tour of Melbourne Cemetery at his grave and in sight of the modern Redmond Barry Building at Melbourne University.

His tombstone reads: SIR REDMOND BARRY First Puisne Judge of the Colony of Victoria Chancellor of the University of Melbourne For 28 Years And Founder of the Melbourne Public Library Third Son of Major General Barry of Ballyclough, County Cork, Ireland Died 23rd November 1880 Aged 67 Years Deeply and Universally Regretted

It does not mention that buried with him is Louisa Barrow - his beloved mistress and mother of the four children who bore his name

This grave can be visited on White Hat Tours' highly entertaining and informative Tour of Melbourne Cemetery. Just be sure to tell your guide at the start of the tour that this is one of the graves you wish to see.

Colourful and unflattering pronouncements on Redmond Barry can be found in the works of historian Manning Clark and in the book Radical Melbourne. You can also find descriptions of him in Garryowen's Melbourne

Portraits

• A portrait of Redmond Barry painted by John Botterill in 1875 hangs in the Redmond Barry Reading Room at the State Library of Victoria.