Thomas Smith (1846 – 5 August 1925) was an Australian politician. He was a member of the

Victorian Legislative Assembly The Victorian Legislative Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria in Australia; the upper house being the Victorian Legislative Council. Both houses sit at Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The presiding ...

from 1889 to 1904, representing the electorate of Emerald Hill; having been elected before the development of a party system, he joined the Labor Party in the mid-1890s. He also served as mayor of both the City of South Melbourne and

City of Port Melbourne The City of Port Melbourne was a local government area about southwest of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia, on the south bank of the Yarra River. The city covered an area of , and existed from 1860 until 1994. The council a ...

. Smith was born in Warton in

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...

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 ...

and moved to

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 ...

with his family as a child in 1856. He followed his father into the hatting trade, apprenticing and then working as a journeyman in that field, during which time he became treasurer of the Silk Hatters' Union. He opened his own hat business in

South Melbourne South Melbourne is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3 km south of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Port Phillip local government area. South Melbourne recorded a population of 11,548 at t ...

in 1871, later expanding to a second location in

Port Melbourne Port Melbourne is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, south-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the Cities of Melbourne and Port Phillip local government areas. Port Melbourne recorded a populatio ...

. Smith was elected to the City of South Melbourne council in 1885 and served for sixteen years, including a term as mayor in 1888-1889. He was also appointed a justice of the peace in 1888 and was a Commissioner of the 1888-89 Melbourne Centennial International Exhibition. Other business interests included being a founder of the Enterprise Permanent Building Society of South Melbourne and a director of the

T & G Mutual Life Assurance Society The T & G Mutual Life Assurance Society was an insurance company that operated in Australia and New Zealand. The 'T & G' stood for 'Temperance & General'. The company was founded in Victoria in 1876, emerging from the Assurance branch of the ...

and Globe Motor Company. Smith was elected to the

as the member for Emerald Hill in 1889. He was one of a number of candidates endorsed for re-election by the Political Labour League in 1892, but defeated an endorsed Labor candidate in 1894. He appears to have joined the Labor Party 1895 and was re-elected as an endorsed Labor candidate for the first time in 1897. He retired in 1904 after an electoral redistribution abolished his seat of Emerald Hill and divided its territory between the existing seats of Albert Park and

. Smith was elected to the

council in September 1902, five months after his parliamentary retirement. He served on the Port Melbourne council for 23 years until his death, and was mayor from 1906 to 1907, 1914 to 1915 and 1920 to 1921. He died in Melbourne in 1925 and was buried at

Melbourne General Cemetery The Melbourne General Cemetery is a large (43 hectare) necropolis located north of the city of Melbourne in the suburb of Carlton North. The cemetery is notably the resting place of four Prime Ministers of Australia, more than any other nec ...

. Smith Street in South Melbourne, Smith Street in Port Melbourne and Smith Reserve in Port Melbourne are all named after Smith.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Thomas 1846 births 1925 deaths Australian Labor Party mayors Members of the Victorian Legislative Assembly English emigrants to Australia People from Warwick Politicians from Melbourne Mayors of places in Victoria (Australia) Australian businesspeople Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Victoria