Street family

Street
Current region	Australia
Place of origin	United Kingdom
Founder	John Street
Members	Philip Street Kenneth Street Laurence Street Geoffrey Street Jessie Street Tony Street Sandy Street Sylvia Street
Motto	"Fideli cum fidelis" (Faithful among the faithless)

The Street family is a prominent Australian legal, political and military family. The dynasty was founded by John Rendell Street, a 19th century banker and politician who descended from the British Baron Sir Thomas Street. John's son Sir Philip Whistler Street, grandson Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Kenneth Whistler Street, and great-grandson Commander Sir Laurence Whistler Street each became Chief Justice of New South Wales.

Brigadier Geoffrey Austin Street was Minister of Defence in World War II, his son Anthony Austin Street served as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the human rights campaigner Jessie Mary (Grey) Street, Australia's first female delegate to the United Nations. In the 21st century, Sir Laurence's son Commander Alexander "Sandy" Street, daughter Lieutenant-Commander Sylvia Emmett and son-in-law Arthur Emmett are federal judges.

1st generation

Main article: John Rendell Street

John Rendell Street, MLC was an Australian politician and businessman. He was the son of John Wood Street of Woodlands, New South Wales, who descended from the English Baron of the Exchequer and Chief Justice Sir Thomas Street. John was the first generation of the Streets to enter Australian politics. He served as the successor of Sir Edmund Barton, 1st Prime Minister of Australia, in his New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of East Sydney. John held this office until his death on the 23rd of March, 1891. John Street had seven children by Susanna Lawson, the daughter of Australian politician and explorer Commandant William Lawson, who along with William Wentworth and Gregory Blaxland pioneered the first settler crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813, granting Sydney access to the inland pastures that would fuel its economic growth thereafter. The second son of John and Susanna was Sir Philip Street. Their third son Ernest Henry Street married Emma Margaret Browne, the daughter of Australian author Thomas Alexander Browne who was renowned for his 1882 bushranging work Robbery Under Arms.

John Street was a director of the Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Company (now Commonwealth Bank) and had a number of kin as contemporaries in 19th century banking and politics. His sister Sarah Smith (née Street) married the politician Thomas Whistler Smith, who was the deputy chairman and managing director of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney (now National Australia Bank). Smith's uncle Henry Smith was also a politician and a director of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney, as were his brothers-in-law, the politicians Walter Lamb, Edward Lamb, Alfred Lamb, and the banker John de Villiers Lamb. These brothers of the Lamb banking family were sons of the politician Commander John Lamb (in turn the son of Captain Lamb of the East India Company), who was the chairman of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney. Two other Street ancestors via Sir Laurence Street's first wife Susan Watt were among these contemporaries, namely John Watt, a politician and director of the Union Bank of Australia (now ANZ), and his father-in-law George Holden, a politician and trustee of the New South Wales Savings Bank (now Westpac). The history of these contemporaries is detailed by the economist Sydney Butlin in his Foundations of the Australian Monetary System, 1788-1851.

2nd generation

Main article: Philip Whistler Street

Sir Philip Street, 1st Chief Justice of the family

Sir Philip Whistler Street, KCMG, KC (1863–1938) was the eighth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales. On 24 July 1906 he was appointed as an acting judge of the Supreme Court and on 11 February 1907 he was made a full judge. He was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales in 1930, and administered the state in the absence of the Governor of New South Wales from May to October 1934, January to February 1935, and January to August 1936. Sir Philip was made Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales on 28 January 1925 and held that office until his 70th birthday in 1933. He died in 1938 and was buried with a state funeral at St Andrew's Cathedral. He is the second longest-serving judge in New South Wales history. His second son was Laurence Whistler Street, and his eldest was Kenneth Whistler Street.

Lieutenant Laurence Street, an ANZAC officer who fought and died in the Battle of Gallipoli, age 21

3rd generation

Main articles: Kenneth Street (jurist), Jessie Street, and Geoffrey Street

Lieutenant Laurence Whistler Street (1894-1915) was 21 years of age when he was killed in action May 1915 at Gallipoli fighting for the Allied forces in World War I. A student of Sydney Law School at the time of his enlistment, he was made an officer of the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Infantry Brigade. He volunteered for active wartime service in August 1914, making him one of the first of his generation to do so.

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Kenneth Whistler Street, KCMG, KStJ, QC (1890–1972) was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court on 7 October 1931. He thus joined the bench of which his father, Sir Philip Whistler Street, was then Chief Justice. According to Percival Serle, this is the only known case in Australian history of a father and a son sitting as judges together on the same bench. In 1949, as senior puisne judge, Street acted as Chief Justice when Sir Frederick Richard Jordan died. He was confirmed in that office from 6 January 1950 and was sworn in on 7 February. Street was Lieutenant-Governor from 1950 to 1972.

Prior to his career as a judge, he served the Allied forces in World War I, having been commissioned on 29 September 1914 in the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry and sent to France. He ultimately rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Australian Army. Like his father before him, he was buried with a state funeral at St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney. Street House at Cranbrook School, Sydney is named in his honour. Sir Kenneth's wife Lady "Red Jessie" Street was a prominent human rights activist. His eldest son Sir Laurence Whistler Street was named in honour of his brother's sacrifice at Gallipoli.

Lady "Red Jessie" Street (born Jessie Mary Grey Lillingston; 18 April 1889 – 2 July 1970) was the daughter of Charles Alfred Gordon Lillingston and Mabel Harriet Ogilvie, in turn the daughter of Australian politician Edward Ogilvie, MLC. She was an Australian suffragette who campaigned extensively for peace and human rights. Dubbed "Red Jessie" by her detractors in the right-wing media for her efforts to promote diplomacy with the USSR and to ease tensions during the Cold War, Jessie was a champion of the progressive cause. She would be a key figure in Australian and international political life for over 50 years, from the women's suffrage struggle in England to the removal of Australia's constitutional discrimination against Aboriginal people in 1967.

Lady Street as Australia's only female delegate at the post-war establishment of the United Nations conference at San Francisco in 1945

Sir Kenneth Street, 2nd Chief Justice of the family

Jessie was Australia's only female delegate to the establishment of the United Nations conference in San Francisco in 1945, where she played a key role alongside the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt in ensuring that gender was included as a non-discrimination clause, in addition to race and religion, in the United Nations Charter. She is recognised both in Australia and internationally for her activism. The Jessie Street Centre, the Jessie Street Trust, the Jessie Street National Women's Library and Jessie Street Gardens exist in her honour.

Brigadier Geoffrey Austin Street, MP, MC (21 January 1894 – 13 August 1940) was a cousin of Sir Kenneth's who served as Australia's Minister of Defence in the First Menzies Government during World War II. He was awarded a Military Cross for his courage in serving the First Australian Imperial Force at the Battle of Gallipoli, where he was wounded before returning to service in France during World War I. At the request of his friend Sir Robert Menzies, Australia's longest-serving Prime Minister, Street stood for and won the seat of Corangamite in 1934.

Street was made Minister of Defence in November 1938 and played a major role in the expansion of the military and munitions production prior to the outbreak of World War II and pushed the National Registration Act (1939) through parliament despite strong opposition. Following the outbreak of war, he worked tirelessly to put Australia on a war footing. In November 1939, Menzies abolished the position of Minister of Defence and appointed Street Minister for the Army and Minister for Repatriation. Street died while holding these offices in the 1940 Canberra air disaster, along with two other Cabinet ministers.

4th generation

Main articles: Laurence Street and Tony Street

Commander Sir Laurence Whistler Street, AC, KCMG, KStJ, QC (3 July 1926 - 21 June 2018) was the fourteenth and second-youngest Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales. He was first made a judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales in the Equity Division. He was appointed Chief Justice and Lieutenant-Governor in 1974. Sir Laurence had joined the Royal Australian Navy at age 17 to serve in World War II and went on to attain the rank of Commander of the Royal Australian Navy Reserve. After his juridical career, he pioneered the practice of mediation and took up a range of offices, foremost as chairman of Fairfax Media and director of Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the oldest bank in the world. Sir Laurence's sister Philippa “Pip” Street married the Australian Test cricketer and journalist John "Jack" Henry Webb Fingleton, OBE in 1942.

Foreign Minister Anthony Street advising Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser at the 13th South Pacific Forum

File:Commander Sir Laurence Street III.png

Sir Laurence Street, 3rd Chief Justice of the family

He was buried with a state funeral at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall in July 2018. In an elegy before 700, incumbent Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull spoke of his mentor: "As a barrister, he was as eloquent as he was erudite, as formidable as he was fashionable […] Laurence had movie star good looks coupled with a charisma, charm and intellect, a humility, a humanity that swept all before him […] His nickname, Lorenzo the Magnificent, was well earned." Incumbent Australian Attorney General Mark Speakman hailed Sir Laurence as "a giant of the law in NSW". Incumbent Chief Justice of Australia Tom Bathurst remembered Sir Laurence as "one of the outstanding jurists of the 20th century."

Susan Gai Watt, AM was the first wife of Sir Laurence Street and the first female chair of the Eastern Sydney Health Service (now amalgamated with Illawarra). She is the daughter of Ernest Alexander Stuart Watt (1874-1954), an Australian heir by whom she is the niece of the aviator Oswald Watt, OBE, and granddaughter of the politician John Brown Watt, MLC, and great-granddaughter of Australian politician George Holden, MLC.

Anthony Austin Street, MP, the son of Geoffrey Austin Street, also represented the seat of Corangamite, from 1966 to 1983. A naval veteran of World War II, he was Australia's Foreign Minister in the Fourth Fraser Ministry, from 1980 until 1983. In the Second Fraser Ministry he served as Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations, and Minister assisting the Prime Minister for Public Service Matters. During the Third Fraser Ministry he served as minister in several posts, including Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations and Minister for Industrial Relations.

Recent generations

Main articles: Sandy Street and Arthur Emmett (judge)

By his first wife Susan Gai Watt, Sir Laurence had four children: Kenneth, Sylvia, Sandy and Sarah.

Kenneth Street is a NSW-based businessman. By his wife Sarah Street, Kenneth has three children: Hamish Street, Isabella Street, a solicitor, and Matilda Street.

Judge Sylvia Emmett, AM (née Street) is a judge of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia and a Lieutenant-Commander of the Royal Australian Naval Reserve. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Sydney and a Bachelor of Laws from Sydney Law School. She is married to fellow federal jurist, Arthur Emmett.

Justice Arthur Emmett, AO, QC, the husband of Sylvia, was also a federal Australian judge and Challis Lecturer in Roman Law at Sydney Law School. Justice Arthur Emmett was appointed to the New South Wales Court of Appeal at a formal ceremony on Thursday, 7 March 2013 after serving as a judge of the Federal Court of Australia.

Judge Alexander "Sandy" Whistler Street, SC, is also a judge of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia and a Commander of the Royal Australian Naval Reserve. By his first wife, Sandy has three children: Charles Street, a barrister, Jack Street, a solicitor, and Lucy Street. By his second wife, he has a fourth daughter, Heidi Street.

Sarah Whistler Farley (née Street) is Sir Laurence's youngest child by his first wife Susan and a board member of the Prince of Wales Hospital Foundation. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Sydney and a Bachelor of Laws from Sydney Law School. By her husband, the financier Gerard Farley, she has four children.

Jessie Street, a Sydney Law School graduate and solicitor, is Sir Laurence's only child by his widow Lady (Penelope; née Ferguson) Street, and god-daughter to Charles, Prince of Wales.