Garran's "personality, like his prose, was devoid of pedantry and pomposity and, though dignified, was laced with a quizzical turn of humour."[9] His death "marked the end of a generation of public men for whom the cultural and the political were natural extensions of each other and who had the skills and talents to make such connections effortlessly."[1] At his death, Garran was one of the last remaining of the people involved with the creation of the Constitution of Australia.