The fifteen-year judicial career of Justice Boothby of the Supreme Court of South Australia all but annulled the colonys constitutional foundations. A contemporary declared that his honour was `literally at war with every institution in the colony. 1 Historians have studied the legal reasoning he deployed to strike down local legislation and legal administration and have analysed its consequences for colonial law, governance and enterprise. As a result, we know a great deal about what Boothby did and the effect he had. Less has been said about what Alex Castles called Boothbys `personal moral justification. 2 This paper concludes that Benjamin Boothby benefited from money received indirectly from a litigant before him
