Attorney-General
Gellibrand arrived at Hobart accompanied by his father on 15 March 1824, and at the opening of the supreme court gave an address as leader of the bar, in which he spoke of trial by jury "as one of the greatest boons conferred by the legislature upon this colony". The full benefit of trial by jury had, however, been withheld from the colony, and Gellibrand's speech is held by some to have been the opening of a campaign for an unconditional system. Gellibrand was a believer in the liberty of the subject, and he was consequently bound to fall foul with a man with the autocratic tendencies of Governor George Arthur.
At the beginning of 1825 Robert William Felton Lathrop Murray began criticizing the government in the local paper the Hobart Town Gazette, and Arthur believed that Gellibrand was in "close union" with Murray. Eventually Gellibrand was charged with unprofessional conduct in having as a barrister drawn the pleas for the plaintiff in a case, and afterwards as attorney-general, acted against him. As a consequence of the charge Alfred Stephen the solicitor-general applied to have Gellibrand struck off the rolls. The many complications of this case are fully discussed in chapter XVIII, vol. II of R. W. Giblin's Early History of Tasmania. As a result Gellibrand lost his position and began practising as a barrister. He established a high reputation in Hobart.
Read more about this topic: Joseph Gellibrand