Gregory Gowans

His mother died when he was six years old having been accidentally poisoned by a splinter containing arsenic oxide — a by-product of the mining industry at that time.

[6] In 1960, Gough Whitlam praised Gowans' articles for The Age on the rights of individuals accused of communism.

He appeared in the Privy Council in London on five occasions in the 1950s on constitutional and criminal law appeals.

[9][10] In 1978-9, Gowans chaired an enquiry into controversial land dealings in Victoria, as a result of which, in the words of the senate opposition leader of the time, "a federal Treasurer resigned; two Victorian Ministers have resigned; two members of the Victorian Liberal Parliamentary Party have been expelled from the Party; two people have been committed to trial in relation to certain offences and a series of mysterious burglaries connected with the participants have occurred.

[13] Gowans' portrait, by Archibald Douglas Colquhoun, hangs in the Art Gallery of New South Wales.