Biography sir henry parkes

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In England he attended vigorously to his duties, though with limited success. He resigned his seat but soon assured his sister that he would be 're-elected to the Legislature whenever I choose to offer myself, and strange as it may seem two-thirds of the mercantile classes will vote for me. In 1865 Cowper tried without success to buy him off again, with offers first of the lucrative post of inspector of prisons, then of a portfolio in his ministry.

He opened branches in Maitland and Geelong, but both failed, and by 1850 he was in financial difficulties. His achievement bore witness to the political arts of which he was now supreme master: besides his own followers the ministry included old Cowper-Robertson men and Butler, a barrister who had covertly engineered sectional Catholic support for Parkes at the election.

The ministry took office in May at a time of commercial prosperity.

On 21 December 1878, he became Premier for the third time, in coalition with Sir John Robertson, following the defeat of the Farnell Government. He survived by borrowing from friends, working as a journalist and briefly acting as travelling agent for H. H. Hall.

In March 1839, Hetherington's Charter published verses from his 'A Poet's Farewell', which indignantly condemned a society through whose injustices 'men like this are compelled to seek the means of existence in a foreign wilderness'.

In protest William McMillan rallied the free traders who denied supply to the new Dibbs government and the House was dissolved. Parkes opposed Darvall and lost the contest after a bitter campaign, but in January 1864 was returned at a by-election for Kiama, a seat he held until 1870. E. Lyne, Life of Sir Henry Parkes (Syd, 1896)

W. His business failed, so he moved with Clarinda to London in search of work.

In 1840 he became a tide-waiter in the Customs Department, slowly bought tools and in 1845 set up in Hunter Street as an ivory turner and importer of fancy goods.

Parkes again became Premier of New South Wales on 20 January 1887, and Clarinda, his wife, died a year later, on 2 February 1888. The couple had 12 children. Meanwhile in a speech at Kiama Parkes had alleged that he had evidence to prove O'Farrell had acted on Fenian orders and that one conspirator had been murdered when suspected of revealing the plot.

By then politics had drifted into chaos.

In the closing paragraph of the extensive eight-page biography of Sir Henry Parkes in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, A.W.Martin notes 'Bearded after 1861, he was always physically impressive, though imposing rather than handsome. He was briefly Sydney correspondent for the Launceston Examiner, and contributed occasional poems and articles on political and literary topics, sometimes under the pseudonym 'Faulconbridge', to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australasian Chronicle and the Atlas.

In that month, as a counter to Gillies's insistence that New South Wales join the Federal Council, he went to Brisbane to consult Queensland ministers and on his return journey delivered at Tenterfield a speech calling for a federal convention to devise 'a great national Government for all Australia'.