Henry Teesdale Smith (22 December 1858 – 25 February 1921) was an Australian businessman and politician who was prominent at various times as a timber merchant, railway builder, and

pastoralist Pastoralist may refer to: * Pastoralism, raising livestock on natural pastures * Pastoral farming, settled farmers who grow crops to feed their livestock * People who keep or raise sheep, sheep farming Sheep farming or sheep husbandry is the r ...

. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Western Australia from 1901 to 1904. Smith was born in

Merino, Victoria Merino is a town in the Western District of Victoria, Australia. The town is located in the Shire of Glenelg local government area, 363 kilometres west of the state capital, Melbourne. At the 2021 census, Merino had a population of 249 ...

, to Ellen (née Teesdale) and George Smith.Henry Teesdale Smith
– Biographical Register of Members of the Parliament of Western Australia. Retrieved 8 October 2016. He attended Hamilton College, and after leaving school began working for a local railway contracting firm. Smith set up his own railway contracting business in 1888, and in 1893 moved to Western Australia to build the Bunbury–

Busselton Busselton is a city in the South West region of the state of Western Australia approximately south-west of Perth. Busselton has a long history as a popular holiday destination for Western Australians; however, the closure of the Busselton ...

line. The following year, he became manager of an Albany timber firm, which he eventually expanded into a "sawmilling empire with leases and concessions along the length of the

Darling Range The Darling Scarp, also referred to as the Darling Range or Darling Ranges, is a low escarpment running north–south to the east of the Swan Coastal Plain and Perth, Western Australia. The escarpment extends generally north of Bindoon, to th ...

". In 1902, his firm and seven others merged to form

Millars Karri and Jarrah Forests Limited Millars' Karri and Jarrah Company (1902) Limited, commonly known as Millars, was a Western Australian focused timber and timber railway company. Millars' Karri and Jarrah Forests Limited was a public company incorporated in London in July 1897 w ...

(known as Millars), which had a virtual monopoly over the market in Western Australia. At the 1901 state election, Smith was elected to the Legislative Assembly seat of Wellington, standing as an independent. However, he did not recontest his seat at the 1904 election, instead choosing to concentrate on his business interests. As manager of Millars, Smith faced several challenges, including a royal commission into price-fixing, a declining market, and several industrial disputes. He resigned in 1908, reputedly over a pay dispute, and left for Adelaide, where he returned to railway contracting. Outside of the timber industry, he had acquired a number of

pastoral lease A pastoral lease, sometimes called a pastoral run, is an arrangement used in both Australia and New Zealand where government-owned Crown land is leased out to graziers for the purpose of livestock grazing on rangelands. Australia Pastoral lease ...

s in Western Australia, including properties near Northam, Mount Barker, Harvey, and Wokalup. In South Australia, Smith was responsible for constructing the Gawler– Angaston, Nurioopta– Truro, Balhannah– Mount Pleasant, and Palmer– Sedan railway lines, as well as an electric tramway in Adelaide. In 1911, Smith also returned to Western Australia to build the

Marble Bar Railway The Port Hedland–Marble Bar railway was a railway in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, running into the hinterland from the north-west coast. History The line was a Western Australian Government Railways (WAGR) gauge branch line whic ...

. In 1914, the federal government granted Smith the right to build a small section of the

Trans-Australian Railway The Trans-Australian Railway, opened in 1917, runs from Port Augusta in South Australia to Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, crossing the Nullarbor Plain in the process. As the only rail freight corridor between Western Australia and the easter ...

, running west from

Port Augusta Port Augusta is a small city in South Australia. Formerly a port, seaport, it is now a road traffic and Junction (rail), railway junction city mainly located on the east coast of the Spencer Gulf immediately south of the gulf's head and about ...

. In 1918, the state government of New South Wales contracted Smith to build a wheat silo and

grain elevator A grain elevator is a facility designed to stockpile or store grain. In the grain trade, the term "grain elevator" also describes a tower containing a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor, which scoops up grain from a lower level and deposits ...

at White Bay. The contract was later claimed to have been signed without appropriate safeguards, and the resulting controversy was said to have contributed to the defeat of William Holman's government at the 1920 state election. Smith lived in Adelaide in retirement, although he also had houses in Melbourne and Sydney. He died in Melbourne in February 1921 (aged 62), of a

cerebral haemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and hemorrhagic stroke, or haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. It is one kind of bleed ...

. He had married Lydia Kate Johnson in 1885, with whom he had five sons and a daughter.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Henry 1858 births 1921 deaths Australian pastoralists Australian people in rail transport Australian sawmillers Independent members of the Parliament of Western Australia Members of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly People from Victoria (Australia) Timber industry in Western Australia