Introduction

Introduction

Welcome to Arbiters of Justice: Historical Studies of Southern Queensland Lawgivers, a special issue of the Queensland History Journal. The papers brought together in this collection originate from a colloquium of the same name held at the University of Southern Queensland in November, 2021. The organisers of the colloquium invited participants to focus on the region’s ‘arbiters of justice’: those judges, magistrates, coroners, lawyers, politicians, police officers, and even members of the public who helped determine guilt and innocence, chastise wrongdoing, and develop the machinery of justice that is in use today. Some of these arbiters are important and well-studied figures in political and legal history, such as Samuel Griffith and Lord Atkin, although the latter made his career and had greatest influence outside of Queensland.* But others have left a weaker impression on historical consciousness, as people holding lower office in more obscure places, or as people beyond the legal profession entirely but who came to be involved against their will in legal proceedings. This special issue aims to bridge the gap between the well known and the more obscure (but still important) aspects of lawgiving in southern Queensland history.

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