Thomas Henry Hassall (11 September 1844 - 17 February 1920) was an

Anglo-Australian English Australians, also known as Anglo-Australians, are Australians whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England. In the 2021 census, 8,385,928 people, or 33% of the Australian population, stated that they had English ancestry (wheth ...

politician.

Early life

Born on 11 September 1844 in

Ashby-de-la-Zouch Ashby-de-la-Zouch, sometimes spelt Ashby de la Zouch () and shortened locally to Ashby, is a market town and civil parish in the North West Leicestershire district of Leicestershire, England. The town is near to the Derbyshire and Staffordshire ...

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. He was educated at

Loughborough Grammar School , religion = Christian , head_label = Headmaster , head = Dr Daniel Koch , r_head_label = Chaplain , r_head = Revd E J York , chair_label = Chairman ...

Australia

Hassall arrived in Sydney in 1861 on board the White Start liner. He made his way up to Lambing Flat and after working in the interior as a

miner A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face; cutting, blasting, ...

, drover and

contractor A contractor is a person or company that performs work on a contract basis. The term may refer to: Business roles * Defense contractor, arms industry which provides weapons or military goods to a government * General contractor, an individual o ...

, settled in Moree in 1867. He was elected to the

New South Wales Legislative Assembly The New South Wales Legislative Assembly is the lower of the two houses of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The upper house is the New South Wales Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament Ho ...

in 1886 for the district of Gwydir, until its first abolition in 1894, and represented the replacement district of Moree until he retired in 1901. Hassall held the portfolio of Secretary for Lands in the

Lyne ministry __NOTOC__ The Lyne ministry was the 29th ministry of the Colony of New South Wales, and was led by the 13th Premier, Sir William Lyne, KCMG. Lyne was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1880 as member for Hume, serving in t ...

, from 1899 to 1901.

South Africa

In 1901 Hassall moved to the

Colony of Natal The Colony of Natal was a British colony in south-eastern Africa. It was proclaimed a British colony on 4 May 1843 after the British government had annexed the Boer Republic of Natalia, and on 31 May 1910 combined with three other colonies to ...

. He was associated with the Federal Cold Storage but deciding on a quiet life, he became a country hotel keeper in

Natal NATAL or Natal may refer to: Places * Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, a city in Brazil * Natal, South Africa (disambiguation), a region in South Africa ** Natalia Republic, a former country (1839–1843) ** Colony of Natal, a former British colony ( ...

. In 1915 he settled at Chelmsford Hotel,

Tongaat oThongathi (previously and popularly known as Tongaat) is a town in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, about north of Durban and south of KwaDukuza. It now forms part of eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality, or the Greater Durban area. The area is hom ...

, on the Natal north coast. After a long illness, he died on Tuesday 17 February 1920, at his residence, Chelmsford Hotel, and was buried at Verulam Cemetery.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hassall, Thomas (New South Wales politician) 1844 births 1920 deaths Colony of New South Wales people Colony of Natal people Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly People educated at Loughborough Grammar School Australian stockmen