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Australia
Published in Vanity Fair
16 October 1902
Offset Lithograph
Rex Nan Kivell Collection
Pictorial Collection

click to enlarge
On the 1st of March 1901 Parliament was opened by the Duke of York, later to be crowned George V. The first Cabinet consisted of Edmund Barton as Prime Minister and Minister for External Affairs, Alfred Deakin Attorney General, George Turner as Treasurer, James Dickson as Minister for Defence, Charles Kingston as Minister for Trade and Customs, John Forrest as Post-Master General, and William Lyne as Minister of Home Affairs. As there were only seven paid positions within the Cabinet, Richard O'Connor was appointed an unpaid honorary member. Edmund Barton was Prime Minister for a little over two and a half years, yet this brief period was to shape the Commonwealth for many years to come.
 
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