This souvenir of George Reid came onto the market shortly before he departed Australia to become the country's first High Commissioner in London. Sydney’s Evening News carried an advertisement for the object on 12 January 1910:
'Sir George Reid has been immortalised by being cast in a statuette of Lithgow iron. The statuette is 5 inches high. Farmer and Company, Ltd, are selling the statuettes, which can be used as a paperweight or ornament.'
William Morris Hughes and George Reid were both popular targets for caricaturists - Hughes for his wizened frame and large ears, and Reid for what Alfred Deakin called 'an immense, unwieldy jelly-like stomach' and 'little legs apparently bowed beneath its weight'.
Purchased 2001
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
1 November 2014
On the day before the Hon. E. G. Whitlam, AC, QC, died last month, at the great age of 98, there were seven former prime ministers of Australia still living, plus the incumbent Mr. Abbott – eight in all.
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