The Sydney Mail 20 Feb 1935
The Long Innes Family
An interesting history is that of the late Sir Joseph George Long Innes, who was one of the most popular Judges on the Bench of his time, and one or the most kind-hearted. It is said that when he had to sentence a man to be hanged he would not sleep all night.

Sir George was the son of a pioneer of the early days, his father being Captain Joseph Long Innes, who arrived in this colony with the 39th Regiment in 1826. He sold out in December 1840, and was for some years Chief Commissioner of Police, and died in 1885.

Sir George Long Innes was born in Sydney in 1834 and was educated at Mr. Cape's school, Parramatta, and at The King’s School. In 1851 he was taken into the Survey Office, and in December of that year was transferred to the Department of Justice and made Clerk of Petty sessions and clerk to Gold Commissioner Zouch at Sofala, on the Turon, then a popular mining settlement. From 1854 to 1856 he was Associate to Sir Alfred Stephen, C.J.; in the latter year he went to England to study law, and on 17 November 1859, was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn. Returning to Sydney in 1862 he was admitted to the N.S.W. Bar, and in 1865 he was appointed District Court Judge in Queensland, which position he resigned in 1869 and resumed his practice at the Bar in N.S.W.

In 1872 he was elected M.L.A. for Mudgee and joined the first Parkes Ministry as Solicitor-General. In 1873 he resigned his seat and was nominated to the Council, where he represented the Government, and on 20 November became Attorney-General. In 1874 he accompanied Sir Hercules Robinson to Fiji to negotiate for the cession of islands to Great Britain, and in recognition of his services on that occasion he was knighted in January, 1878. He was informed by the Imperial authorities that he would have the choice of the Chief Justiceship of Gibraltar and Ceylon. Sir George, however, declined the office. Leaving ofiice in February, 1875, he was appointed Chairman of Committees of the Legislative Council, which position he held until August 1880, when he became Minister of Justice in Sir Henry Parkes's third Ministry. In October 1881, he was appointed to the Supreme Court of N.S.W., and was still in harness when he died in London on 28 October 1896.

He left issue:—George Massey Long Innes, barrister-at-law and Parliamentary draughtsman, died 1919; (Captain) Edward Cecil Long Innes, now in Transvaal; Reginald Heath Long Innes, a Judge in the High Court of N.S.W.; (Captain) Clive Selwyn Long Innes; Eleanor Mary (deceased); Major Percival Selwyn Long Innes, M.C. (late Irish Guards); and Mary Ethel, now in England. Sir George Long Innes married Emily Janet Smith, daughter of Hon. John Smith, M.L.C., of Llanarth, Bathurst, and Gamboola.

[Collated by Miss I. Redford.]

Sir George Innes was the judge who tried Bertie Glasson and sentenced him to death.