The electoral district of Cumberland was a single-member electoral district of the
Tasmanian House of Assembly
The House of Assembly, or Lower House, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of Tasmania in Australia. The other is the Legislative Council or Upper House. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Hobart.
The Assembly has 25 m ...
. It was based in central Tasmania in towns such as
Bothwell,
Hamilton and
Ouse, and until 1894 included much of the
West Coast before the mining districts of
Zeehan and
Queenstown became large enough to require their own seats.
The seat was created ahead of the Assembly's first
election held in 1856, and was abolished when the Tasmanian parliament adopted the
Hare-Clark electoral model in 1909. Some controversy existed over the
1893 election result, as a redistribution still awaiting royal assent had not been carried out due to the
snap election
A snap election is an election that is called earlier than the one that has been scheduled.
Generally, a snap election in a parliamentary system (the dissolution of parliament) is called to capitalize on an unusual electoral opportunity or to ...
and the sitting member and
Speaker of the House,
Nicholas John Brown
Nicholas John Brown (9 October 1838 – 22 September 1903) was a pastoralist and politician in colonial Tasmania, a Speaker of the Tasmanian House of Assembly.
Brown was the son of Richard Brown, was born at Hobart and educated at the Hutchin ...
, lost the seat to
Don Urquhart
Donald Campbell Urquhart (1848 – 6 August 1911) was an Australian politician.
Early life
He was born in London.
Political career
In 1893, Urquhart was elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly as the Free Trade member for Cumberla ...
, a
Zeehan solicitor. The
Supreme Court ultimately resolved the matter in Brown's favour, and a new seat,
Montagu, was created which Urquhart stood for and won.
Members for Cumberland
References
*
*
* Parliament of Tasmania (2006)
The Parliament of Tasmania from 1956
Cumberland
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