John Kerr

, 1976

Sir John Kerr AK KCMG LSt J PC GCVO QC (1914-1991) was the eighteenth Governor-General of Australia. Kerr was born in Sydney and educated at Fort Street Boys' High and the University of Sydney, where he graduated in law with first class honours and a University Medal. He was admitted to the bar in 1938, and reached the rank of Colonel in the AIF during the war. From 1953, when he took silk, through the early 1960s he worked as a lawyer, becoming both President of the Bar Association and President of the Law Council of Australia in 1964. In 1966 he became a judge of the Commonwealth Industrial Court, and in 1972 he became Chief Justice of New South Wales. In 1974 he resigned from this position to become Governor-General.