The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Garrick, Hon. Sir James Francis
Garrick, Hon. Sir James Francis, K.C.M.G., M.L.C., Q.C., Agent-General for Queensland, is the second son of the late James Francis Garrick, of Sydney, New South Wales, in which city he was born in 1836. After practising as a solicitor in Brisbane, Queensland, where he was a partner of the present Chief Justice, Sir Charles Lilley, and for several years City Solicitor for Brisbane, he was elected to the Assembly for East Moreton, and subsequently visited England, entering as a student at the Middle Temple in Nov. 1870. He was called to the bar in June 1873, and, returning to Brisbane, practised at the local bar with great success, and also took a leading position in politics. Mr. Garrick was Crown Prosecutor from 1874 to 1877; and having been returned for Moreton, in that year entered the Douglas Ministry as Secretary for Lands and Mines, a post which he held from Feb. to Dec. 1878, when he was appointed Attorney-General. Mr. Garrick retired with his colleagues in Jan. 1879, and became Q.C. in 1882, when he was again returned for Moreton. On the formation of the first Griffith Ministry, in Nov. 1883, Mr. Garrick was nominated to the Legislative Council, and was appointed Colonial Treasurer, but exchanged this post for that of Postmaster-General in the following December. In June of the next year he was appointed Agent-General for Queensland, and for the first time in the history of the colony held that post in conjunction with a seat in the Government, of which he was a member without portfolio till Sir Samuel Griffith's resignation in June 1888. During his first tenure of office as Agent-General in London, he was a Royal Commissioner and Executive Commissioner for Queensland at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in 1886, and was one of the representatives of the colony at the Colonial Conference in the next year. In 1885 he was created C.M.G., and K.C.M.G. in 1886. Sir James, who married in 1865 Kate, daughter of the late J. J. Cadell, M.D., was reappointed Agent-General in Dec. 1890. He is a member of the governing body of the Imperial Institute.