The decades immediately preceding and following Federation were the formative years of Australian politics. This biography tells the story of that period of transition through the life of one of its central protagonists. Sir Joseph Carruthers had a distinguished and eventful career as Premier, a Father of Federation and a Member of the New South Wales Parliament for forty-five years. His greatest legacy is the adaptation of nineteenth-century classical liberalism to the politics of Australia's nascent party system. It is in large part because of Carruthers, and his great friend George Reid, that liberalism in Australia came to be associated with the centre-right.