Frederick Garling

Frederick Garling (17 February 1775 – 2 May 1848) was an English attorney and solicitor, and was one of the first solicitors admitted in Australia and was regarded as the first senior solicitor of the second Supreme Court established in the colony of New South Wales, which is now a State of Australia. Garling is recognised as being one of the first crown solicitors in Australia.

He was born in London, the son of Nicholas Garling, a London mantua maker. He was admitted at Westminster, England as an attorney in 1795 in the Court of King's Bench and also as a solicitor in the Court of Chancery. Garling is recorded as being a "certificated" attorney. He married Elizabeth (née Spratt) in London on 14 April 1801. Elizabeth and Garling had five children prior to her death. After Elizabeth's death, he married Sarah Oliver White on 15 September 1835. Sarah died in September 1840 before having children.

In February 1814 Garling and another English attorney William Henry Moore were induced to travel to New South Wales by the Colonial Office in the United Kingdom to begin life as a solicitor in that colony. He was offered the sum of £300 to undertake the journey. Both Moore and Garling were first called 'stipendiary Solicitors', and then were later called 'Crown or Government Solicitors'. Although they were referred to as crown solicitors, they were not considered to be professionally retained by the Crown and were independent of it. At the time in New South Wales, the only legally trained persons were those with criminal backgrounds who had been transported to Sydney as convicts. Attorneys such as George Crossley and others whilst permitted to appear in court as agents (and not lawyers), were not allowed to be admitted due to the English laws which precluded the admission of legal professionals with criminal backgrounds.

Garling left the United Kingdom on 20 October 1814 with his wife Elizabeth and five children. They sailed on the Francis and Eliza. The ship was captured by an American privateer off the island of Madeira. Garling did not arrive in Sydney until 8 August 1815 ostensibly because of this. Historian John Bennett notes that this was unlikely as the cause of the delay, and that in fact, the delay was due to Garling not wishing to leave earlier. The other lawyer Moore arrived seven months earlier.

The biographers for both Garling and Moore note that on 11 May 1815, Moore was the first attorney admitted to the first Supreme Court (being the Supreme Court of Civil Judicature and Garling was the second. It is probable that Garling was the first solicitor admitted to the second Supreme Court which was opened by the first Chief Justice of New South Wales Francis Forbes in May 1824. Forbes formally re-admitted all existing practitioners in the colony. Whilst Garling appears first on the roll, it is claimed that the roll dates from no earlier than 1828. Whatever the merits of the argument, both Moore and Garling are can be jointly considered as the first solicitors of New South Wales being appointed at the same time by the Colonial Office prior to their embarkation to Sydney.

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