Ernest Brougham Docker (1 April 1842 – 12 August 1923) was an Australian
judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...
,
cricketer
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
and
photographer.
Biography
Docker was the oldest son of New South Wales pastoralist and politician
Joseph Docker, and his second wife Matilda née Brougham. He was born at his father's estate "Thornthwaite", near
Scone, in the Upper
Hunter Region
The Hunter Region, also commonly known as the Hunter Valley, is a region of New South Wales, Australia, extending from approximately to north of Sydney. It contains the Hunter River and its tributaries with highland areas to the north and so ...
of
New South Wales.
[Woodman, Stewart J]
"Docker, Ernest Brougham (1842–1923)"
Australian Dictionary of Biography. Published first in hardcopy 1981, accessed online 12 May 2020. He graduated B.A. in 1863 and M.A. in 1865 from
St Paul's College, University of Sydney.
Docker was a cricketer in his younger days.
He played one
first-class match for
New South Wales in February 1863.
Docker was admitted to the colonial Bar on 28 June 1867. He was crown prosecutor for the northern district (1875), the south-western district (1878), and judge of the District Court and chairman of Quarter Sessions for the north-western district (1881).
From 1884 to 1912 he was in the western district. He retired in 1918.
Following the pioneering lead of his father Joseph in this field in Australia, Docker took a great interest in photography. He joined the
Royal Society of New South Wales
The Royal Society of New South Wales is a learned society based in Sydney, Australia. The Governor of New South Wales is the vice-regal patron of the Society.
The Society was established as the Philosophical Society of Australasia on 27 June ...
in 1876 and was president of the Photographic Society of New South Wales from 1894 to 1907.
He married Clarissa Mary Tucker in 1873. She died in June 1918.
They had seven daughters and two sons.
He died at his home in the
harbourside suburb of
Elizabeth Bay in August 1923, aged 81.
[
]
''If Jesus Did Not Die Upon the Cross''
In 1920 Docker authored ''If Jesus Did Not Die Upon the Cross'', an early work to argue for the swoon hypothesis
The swoon hypothesis is any of a number of ideas that aim to explain the resurrection of Jesus, proposing that Jesus did not die on the cross, but merely fell unconscious ("swooned"), and was later revived in the tomb in the same mortal body. Thi ...
that Jesus survived his crucifixion. He theorized that Jesus was in a state of catalepsy or self-hypnosis which gave the impression of death. Docker also asserted that the spear thrust by the soldier may have not occurred and Jesus was given clothing by the "gardener" mentioned in John 20:15.[Zugibe, Frederick Thomas. (2005). ''The Crucifixion of Jesus: A Forensic Inquiry''. M. Evans & Company. p. 149. ]
Docker's ideas were rejected by Frederick Zugibe who commented that "there is no valid documentation to support his hypothesis."
Selected publications
''If Jesus Did Not Die Upon the Cross''
(1920); digitised version at Internet Archive
See also
* List of New South Wales representative cricketers
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Docker, Ernest Brougham
1842 births
1923 deaths
19th-century Australian judges
Australian cricketers
New South Wales cricketers
Australian photographers
Photographers from New South Wales
Swoon hypothesis
University of Sydney alumni