Forrest, John Forrest, 1st Baron, 1847–1918, Australian explorer and statesman. In 1869 he led an expedition to the west of Lake Barlee in search of the missing Friedrich Leichhardt, and the following year he returned from Perth along the Great Bight to Adelaide. After other explorations he became surveyor general of Western Australia (1883) and its first premier (1890–1901). In 1901 he became postmaster general of the commonwealth. Successively he was commonwealth minister of defense (1901–3), minister of home affairs (1903–4), and treasurer (1905–7, 1909–10, 1913–14, and 1917–18). His writings include Explorations in Australia (1875) and Western Australia (1884–87).
See biography by F. K. Crowley (1971).
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