William (Bill) Ah Ket (麥錫祥, 20 June 1876 – 6 August 1936) was a noted

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n barrister.

Life

With paternal ancestry from

Taishan __NOTOC__ Taishan may refer to: *Mount Tai or Taishan (), Shandong, China *Taishan District, Tai'an (), named after the Mount Tai, a district in Tai'an, Shandong, China *Taishan, Guangdong (), a county-level city of Jiangmen, Guangdong, China **Gre ...

, southern China, Ah Ket was Australia's first barrister of Asian heritage or ethnicity. He was born on 20 June 1876 at

Wangaratta Wangaratta ( ) is a city in the northeast of Victoria, Australia, from Melbourne along the Hume Highway. The city had an estimated urban population of 19,318 at June 2018. Wangaratta has recorded a population growth rate of almost 1% annually ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

, the only son and fifth child of Mah Ket and Hing Ung. He was an alumnus of the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

. On 16 November 1912 he married Gertrude Victoria Bullock at the Kew Methodist Church. They had two sons (William and Stanley) and two daughters (Melaan and Toylaan). He died on 6 August 1936 of arteriosclerosis and renal failure at

Malvern Malvern or Malverne may refer to: Places Australia * Malvern, South Australia, a suburb of Adelaide * Malvern, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne * City of Malvern, a former local government area near Melbourne * Electoral district of Malvern, an e ...

, Victoria. His daughter Melaan was the mother of the guitarist

John Williams John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932)Nylund, Rob (15 November 2022)Classic Connection review ''WBOI'' ("For the second time this year, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic honored American composer, conductor, and arranger John Williams, who wa ...

. Ah Ket fought against the requirements of the 1907 ''Factories (Employment of Chinese)'' Act, which discriminated against Chinese residents, and successfully opposed legislative amendments in 1904, 1905, and 1907 which would have specifically discriminated against Chinese residents in the furniture industry. He was a co-founder of the Australian-Chinese Association and one of two delegates from the Chinese community in Australia to the opening of the Chinese national parliament of 1912. In 1913–14 and 1917, he acted as Consul-General for China in Melbourne.

Notes

Australian barristers 1876 births 1936 deaths People from Wangaratta Australian people of Chinese descent University of Melbourne alumni {{Australia-law-bio-stub