DEAKIN, ALFRED (1856-1919), Australian statesman, was born at Melbourne on Aug. 3, 1856. Educated at Melbourne university, he was called to the Victorian bar in 1877. He entered the Victorian legislature in 188o, and from 1883 onwards held several important ministerial posts. After the fall of the coalition ministry in 1895 he remained a private member of the legislature, though office was repeatedly offered to him, until i9oo. In that year he came to London to discuss with Chamberlain more par ticularly the legal points in the Australian Commonwealth Consti tution Bill. In Victoria his public speeches helped on the Federa tion movement and in 19o1, as attorney-general, he was included in the first Federal cabinet of Sir Edmund Barton, whom he suc ceeded as prime minister in 19o3. During his legislative career in Victoria he was active in promoting social legislation and an ardent advocate of preference in favour of Great Britain. This fiscal policy he pursued during his three Federal premierships (19o3-04, 1905-08, i9o9—io), and supported Australia's co operation in imperial defence, being responsible for the inception of the measure authorizing Australian naval construction in 19o9, and for the invitation to Lord Kitchener to visit Australia and report on the question of defence. After 1910 he led the Opposi tion in the Australian parliament until compelled to retire, owing to ill-health, in 1912. He died at Melbourne on Oct. 7, 1919. Deakin had made a special study of the irrigation problem, and wrote three books on irrigation in Western America (1885), in Egypt and Italy (1887), and in India (1892). The Irrigation Act of 1886 was largely his work.
See W. Murdoch, Alfred Deakin (1923) B. R. Wise, Making of the Australian Commonwealth (1913) .