Redmond Barry and the Foundation of the Library of the Supreme Court of Victoria: Legal Legacies
Reynolds, Susan · RMIT Research Repository (RMIT University Library) · 2009
When Victoria separated from New South Wales in 1851 the Supreme Court judges and their connections in the new colonial government acquired the power to determine the requirements for practising law in the colony. Consequently, Redmond Barry, the first puisne judge and Acting ChiefJustice in the Colony of Victoria, had the freedom to found and develop the Supreme Court Library according to his personal vision and to enshrine his scheme in law with the Supreme CourtAct and its Rules and Regulations. For the next twenty-five years Barry and the Library Committee then attempted to subvert the ramifications of the rules Barry himself had endorsed. 'Barrys rules' have remained substantially the same since 1852 and although the library and its librarianship have changed over the decades in response to the external world and its legal needs, the functional infrastructure of the Library of the Supreme Court in 2009 is little removedfrom its historical, cultural, social and political beginnings.