Hayden Starke

Who was Hayden Starke?

Sir Hayden Erskine Starke KCMG, an Australian judge, was a justice of the High Court of Australia.

Starke was born in 1871 in the Victorian gold rush town of Creswick, where his father was the Chief Medical Officer of the Creswick Hospital. Dr Anthony George Hayden Starke had emigrated from Honiton in East Devonshire in 1863 to take up the position at the new hospital in this bustling town that then rivalled Ballarat. Hayden Starke was educated at the Scotch College in Melbourne.

He completed a course as an articled clerk in 1892, and was admitted to the Victorian Bar later that year, having won the annual Prize in Law from the Supreme Court of Victoria. He practised as a barrister until he was appointed to the bench of the High Court in 1920. Between 1903 and 1920, he appeared before the court 211 times, more than any other justice of the court. From 1920 to 1921, Starke was the Deputy President of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration.

Starke was a mentor to John Latham, an Attorney-General of Australia and later Chief Justice of Australia, although there was later friction between them, when Latham was Chief Justice.