FORREST, The Right Hon. Sir John

Budget Speech 1906-7 by the ... Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Australia, on Tuesday, 31st July, 1906 [drop-title]

Melbourne, J. Kemp, Acting Government Printer, 1906.

Small quarto, 56 pages.

Full limp roan decorated and lettered in gilt on the front cover, all edges dyed red; leather a little worn at the extremities, with minor loss to the head of the heavily sunned spine; rear cover a little unevenly sunned; a very good copy (internally fine).

The verso of the front flyleaf is inscribed and signed to 'The Countess of Carnarvon, from John Forrest. Oct 2nd 1906'. Sir John Forrest, 1st Baron Forrest of Bunbury (1847-1918), surveyor, explorer and politician, 'was the first professional politician in Western Australia, and also the most successful and influential public man in his home State during the whole of his career. As a surveyor and civil servant he was never denied a promotion, and as a State and Federal politician he never lost his seat at an election.... when he died, he was one of the last surviving heroes of Australian exploration, and one of the last of the founding fathers of Federation' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography'). Almina Herbert, Countess of Carnarvon (1876-1969), was the wife of George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon; 'her biological father was the banker Alfred de Rothschild, of the Rothschild family, who left her considerable wealth'. This greatly assisted the Earl when he later 'became the financial backer of the search for Tutankhamun's tomb ... In November 1922, her husband and daughter were present with the archaeologist Howard Carter at the opening of the tomb' (Wikipedia).