Jack Want

W. H. Savigny's Collegiate School, Cooks River, and reportedly in Caen, Normandy, France,[1] where he learned to speak fluent French.

[5] The yacht could only reasonably be transported to Australia by sailing her there but she was a small vessel and the prospect of a 15,000 mile voyage hampered Want's initial attempts to find a suitable crew.

However, she finally set sail for Sydney from Southampton on 19 May 1884 with a crew of four: Tom Dudley, the captain; Edwin Stephens; Edmund Brooks; and Richard Parker, the cabin boy.

The Mignonette sank within five minutes of being struck and the crew abandoned ship for the lifeboat, only managing to salvage vital navigational instruments along with two tins of turnips and no fresh water.

[8] The crew were adrift for 24 days and resorted to cannibalism, with Parker being killed and eaten and Dudley and Stephens later prosecuted in England in a landmark case.

[3] In January 1889 Want moved to adjourn the Assembly, so as to censure the appointment of William Meeke Fehon as one of the Railway Commissioners, and the motion was carried 37 to 23.

[18] Whilst the government survived the motion, parliament was dissolved on 6 June 1891 and his opposition to Parkes meant that Want reverted to standing as an independent free trade candidate for the 1891 election.

[3] Want was nominated to the New South Wales Legislative Council in 1894 and from 18 December 1894 until April 1899 (apart from 10 weeks in 1898) was attorney-general in the ministry of George Reid.

How strongly he felt can be seen by a quotation from one of his speeches: "I would rather see almost anything than see this hydra-headed monster called federation basking in its constitutional beastliness--for that is what it is--in this bright and sunny land.

After the defeat of the first referendum, Want rejoined the ministry as Attorney General, but effectively abdicated his role of leader of the opposition to Federation.

The upshot was that the Attorney General of New South Wales - the minister responsible for the provision of expert advice on the Constitution - was only to learn of the premiers decision when a copy of the Daily Graphic reached him on his desert wanders through Egypt.

He was, however, a great advocate unequalled in his presentation of his evidence to the jury, taking it into his confidence with an appealing frankness, emphasizing the strong points of his case, and gently sliding over its weaknesses.