Robert Garran - Retirement

Retirement

Garran retired from his governmental positions on 9 February 1932, a fixed retirement date on the day before his sixty-fifth birthday. He soon returned to practise as a barrister, and within a month he was made a King's Counsel (KC). However, he occasionally carried out more prominent work. In 1932, he was selected on the advice of now Attorney-General John Latham to chair the Indian Defence Expenditure Tribunal, to advise on the dispute between India and the United Kingdom regarding the costs of the military defence of India. In 1934, along with John Keating, William Somerville and David John Gilbert, he formed a committee which prepared The Case for Union, the Government of Australia's official reply to the secessionist movement in the state of Western Australia.

Garran was also involved with the arts; he was the vice-president of the Canberra Musical Society, where he sang and played the clarinet, and in 1946 won a national song competition run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Garran also published translations of Heinrich Heine's 1827 work Buch der Lieder ("Book of Songs") in 1924, and of the works of Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann in 1946.

In 1937, Garran was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG), the third time he had been knighted. Shortly after the establishment of the ANU in 1946, Garran became its first graduate when he was awarded an honorary doctorate of laws. He had already been awarded such an honorary doctorate from the University of Melbourne in 1937 and later receiving one from his alma mater, the University of Sydney in 1952. Garran served on ANU's council from 1946 until 1951. Garran's influence on Canberra is remembered by the naming of the suburb of Garran, Australian Capital Territory, and his link with ANU is remembered by the naming of a chair in the university's School of Law, by the naming of the hall of residence Burton & Garran Hall and by the naming of Garran house at Canberra Grammar School for his work with that school.

Garran died in 1957 in Canberra. He was granted a state funeral, the first given to a public servant of the Government of Australia. He was survived by his four sons; his wife Hilda had died in 1936. His memoirs, Prosper the Commonwealth, were published posthumously in 1958, having been completed shortly before his death.