Edmund Barton

This is the story of how an easy-going Sydney politician, with a reputation for enjoying the pleasures of the table and a fondness for cricket, became possessed by one enduring enthusiasm. That passion, maintained across almost two decades, was to make a new country from a collection of British colonies. How did Edmund Barton, although only one of many who contributed to the federal cause, come to be regarded as its actual and symbolic leader? In the company of figures like Henry Parkes, Samuel