the first federal public servant to receive one. Early life Garran was born in Sydney, New South Wales, the only son (among seven children) of journalist and politician Andrew Garran and his wife Mary Isham. His parents were committed to social justice, Mary campaigning for issues such as the promotion of education for women, and Andrew advocating free trade and Federation, and as editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and later promoting them as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council. The family lived in Phillip Street in central Sydney. Garran's mother "had a deep distrust, well justified in those days, of milkman's milk" and so she kept a cow in the backyard, which would walk on its own to The Domain each day to graze and return twice a day to be milked. The Garrans later lived in the suburb of Darlinghurst, just to the east of the centre of the city. Garran attended Sydney Grammar School from the age of ten, starting in 1877. He was a successful student, and became School Captain in 1884. He then studied arts and law at the University of Sydney, where he was awarded scholarships for classics, mathematics and general academic ability. Garran graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1888 and subsequently won the University's Medal in Philosophy when he was conferred with a Master of Arts with first-class honours in 1899. After graduating, Garran began to study for the Bar examination. He was employed for a year with a firm of Sydney solicitors, and in 1890 served as associate to Justice William Charles Windeyer of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. Windeyer had a reputation for being a harsh and inflexible judge, particularly in criminal cases, where he was said to have "a rigorous and unrelenting sense of the retribution that he believed criminal justice demanded, [and] a sympathy verging on the emotional for the victims of crime." Garran however offered a different view, saying that "those who knew him well knew that under a brusque exterior he was the kindest of men", and his reputation had to some degree been created by misrepresentation. In 1891, Garran was admitted to the New South Wales Bar, where he commenced practice as a barrister, primarily working in equity. Federation movement Garran, like his father, was strongly involved in the Australian Federation movement, the movement which sought to unite