Sir Edward Nicholas Coventry Braddon (11 June 1829 – 2 February 1904) was an Australian politician who served as

Premier of Tasmania The premier of Tasmania is the head of the executive government in the Australian state of Tasmania. By convention, the leader of the party or political grouping which has majority support in the House of Assembly is invited by the governor of ...

from 1894 to 1899, and was a Member of the First Australian Parliament in the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

. Braddon was a Tasmanian

delegate Delegate or delegates may refer to: * Delegate, New South Wales, a town in Australia * Delegate (CLI), a computer programming technique * Delegate (American politics), a representative in any of various political organizations * Delegate (Unit ...

to the Constitutional Conventions. Both the suburb of Braddon in the

Australian Capital Territory The Australian Capital Territory (commonly abbreviated as ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until 1938, is a landlocked federal territory of Australia containing the national capital Canberra and some surrounding townships. I ...

and the

Division of Braddon The Division of Braddon is an Australian electoral division in the state of Tasmania. The current MP is Gavin Pearce of the Liberal Party, who was elected at the 2019 federal election. Braddon is a rural electorate covering approximately ...

in Tasmania are named after him.

Early life

Braddon was born in St. Kew, Cornwall in 1829, the son of unsuccessful solicitor Henry Braddon and his wife Fanny White. He had two sisters, one of whom,

Mary Elizabeth Braddon Mary Elizabeth Braddon (4 October 1835 – 4 February 1915) was an English popular novelist of the Victorian era. She is best known for her 1862 sensation novel ''Lady Audley's Secret'', which has also been dramatised and filmed several times. ...

, was later a famous novelist. Braddon was educated at various private schools including

University College School ("Slowly but surely") , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent day school , religion = , president = , head_label = Headmaster , head = Mark Beard , r_head_label = , r_he ...

, and later at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. Henry and Fanny separated in 1840, due to Henry's financial failures, and in 1847, Braddon left for

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

to take a job with his

cousin Most generally, in the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a cousin is a type of familial relationship in which two relatives are two or more familial generations away from their most recent common ancestor. Commonly, ...

's merchant business. He later joined the Indian civil service, rising to the position of assistant commissioner, and serving as Inspector-General of Registration and Commissioner of Excise and Stamps. Braddon married firstly Mary Georginia Palmer on the 24 Oct 1857 in Calcutta, India, she died aged 24 on the 28th of July 1864 at Simla, Bengal. India. They had two sons and four daughters. One of these sons was Sir Henry Yule Braddon, who was a Rugby union player, representing

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

(the

All Blacks The New Zealand national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks ( mi, Ōpango), represents New Zealand in men's international rugby union, which is considered the country's national sport. The team won the Rugby World Cup in 1987, ...

) and

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, and was later a Commissioner (ambassador) for Australia in the United States. Daughter Alice Gertrude married Colonel Bernard Underwood Nicolay CB (see

Nicolay (family) Nicolay (de Nicolaÿ/Nicolaï) – refer to Nobility particle) is a European noble family of the Ancien Régime with its roots in the south of France at the early part of the 14th Century. There is however, evidence to suggest that its origins s ...

). In 1876, Braddon married Alice Smith, who survived him. During the Indian Mutiny, Braddon fought as a volunteer on behalf of the British forces. In 1872, Braddon wrote a memoir detailing his experiences in India, entitled ''Life in India''. He left the Indian civil service in 1878 and retired to Tasmania.

Political career

Tasmanian career

In 1879, Braddon was elected to 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 ...

in the Division of West Devon, and he represented that constituency until November 1888. He became leader of the opposition in 1886 and after the defeat of the James Agnew government, he was asked to form a cabinet. However, he resigned the premiership to

Philip Fysh Sir Philip Oakley Fysh (1 March 1835 – 20 December 1919) was an English-born Australian politician. He arrived in Tasmania in 1859 and became a leading merchant in Hobart. He served two terms as premier of Tasmania (1877–1878, 1887–1892) ...

, and instead became Minister for Lands and Works. In 1888, Braddon represented Tasmania on the Federal Council, the predecessor to the Constitutional Conventions of the 1890s. After leaving parliament in 1888, Braddon was appointed Agent-General for Tasmania in London, a position he held until September 1893. While in London he helped to raise funds to float a number of ventures in Tasmania. These include the

Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company was a Tasmanian mining company formed on 29 March 1893, most commonly referred to as ''Mount Lyell''. Mount Lyell was the dominant copper mining company of the West Coast from 1893 to 1994, and was based in ...

. After returning to Tasmania, Braddon was again elected the member for West Devon, and again became opposition leader. In April 1894, Braddon became Premier, and held office until 12 October 1899, the longest term of any Premier up to that date. He drew no salary while in office, but a contemporary diarist, J.B. Walker, judged him "an adventurer ... not overburdened with conscience". In 1895, Braddon published another volume of memoirs, entitled ''Thirty Years of Shikar''.

Federal career

Braddon was an important proponent of

federation A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government ( federalism). In a federation, the self-govern ...

in Tasmania. He was elected as one of the Tasmanian representatives to the Constitutional Convention of 1897. At the convention, he was responsible for the so-called "Braddon Clause" (or "Braddon Blot", as it was known by its opponents). The proposed Constitution provided that the Federal Government would assume the power to levy customs duties, an important source of revenue for the states. The Braddon Clause provided that the Commonwealth would have to return at least three-quarters of all duties collected. After fierce debate, during which

George Reid Sir George Houston Reid, (25 February 1845 – 12 September 1918) was an Australian politician who led the Reid Government as the fourth Prime Minister of Australia from 1904 to 1905, having previously been Premier of New South Wales fr ...

threatened to withdraw

from the convention, the Clause was limited in operation to ten years after Federation. The now-defunct Clause is still part of the Constitution of Australia a
Section 87
however it was superseded by th
Surplus Revenue Act 1910
At the federal election of 1901, Braddon was elected to the first Australian Parliament as one of the five members for Tasmania, which had not yet been divided into electoral divisions. He was not only the oldest member of the House of Representatives, but, at almost 72 years of age, he is still the oldest person ever elected to the House of Representatives. (The city of

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, where the Parliament then met, had not been founded at the time of his birth). As a supporter of

free trade Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. It can also be understood as the free market idea applied to international trade. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold econ ...

, he joined with Sir George Reid and became a member of the Free Trade Party, where he would occasionally stand as Leader of the Opposition when Reid was absent. In the debates over the ''Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902'' he spoke in favour of the disenfranchisement of Aboriginals. Braddon was re-elected at the federal election of 1903, as the first member for the

Division of Wilmot The Division of Wilmot was an Australian Electoral Division in the state of Tasmania. It was located in central Tasmania, and was named after Sir John Eardley-Wilmot, the sixth Lieutenant-Governor of Tasmania. At various times it included th ...

, but he died suddenly at his home in Tasmania in 1904 before the parliament returned from recess. Braddon is buried at Pioneer Cemetery in

Forth, Tasmania Forth is a small village in north-west Tasmania on the Forth River, west of Devonport and north-west of Launceston via the Bass Highway. It is mainly in the Central Coast Council area, but with just under 25% in the City of Devonport. For ...

. In February 2004, his grave was restored and a lookout constructed nearby to commemorate the centenary of his death.

Honours

In 1891 Braddon was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George. In 1897 he was made a member of the Privy Council. The Canberra suburb of

Braddon, Australian Capital Territory Braddon is an inner north suburb of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia located adjacent to the Canberra CBD. The suburb is one of the oldest suburbs in Canberra, a relatively young city, settled in 1922 and gazetted as a divi ...

was named after him in 1928.

References

* * Tasmanian Bicentenary Office �
200 Footprints
*

External links

''Thirty years of Shikar''
(1895)