Vernon Charles Redwood (14 April 1873 – 15 February 1954) was a

maltster Malting is the process of steeping, germinating and drying grain to convert it into malt. The malt is mainly used for brewing or whisky making, but can also be used to make malt vinegar or malt extract. Various grains are used for malting, most ...

and member of the

Queensland Legislative Assembly The Legislative Assembly of Queensland is the sole chamber of the unicameral Parliament of Queensland established under the Constitution of Queensland. Elections are held every four years and are done by full preferential voting. The Assembly ...

Biography

Redwood was born at

Riverlands Riverlands is a locality in Marlborough, New Zealand. State Highway 1 runs through the settlement, and the Ōpaoa River flows past to the northeast. Blenheim is about 2.5 km to the northwest. According to the 2013 New Zealand census, Ri ...

near Blenheim,

Marlborough Marlborough may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Marlborough, Wiltshire, England ** Marlborough College, public school * Marlborough School, Woodstock in Oxfordshire, England * The Marlborough Science Academy in Hertfordshire, England Austral ...

, New Zealand,Vernon Charles Redwood
—

State Library of Queensland The State Library of Queensland is the main reference and research library provided to the people of the State of Queensland, Australia, by the state government. Its legislative basis is provided by the Queensland Libraries Act 1988. It contai ...

. Retrieved 24 March 2016. one of 15 siblings to parents Charles Redwood (1836–1915) and his wife Mary Elizabeth (née Grimstone, 1843–1912).

Henry Redwood Henry Redwood (24 January 1823 – 9 November 1907) was a New Zealand farmer, politician and racehorse breeder. Biography He was born in Tixall, Staffordshire, England in 1823. He was a brother of Francis Redwood, a brother in law of Joseph War ...

(1823–1907) and

Francis Redwood Francis William Mary Redwood SM (6 April 1839 – 3 January 1935), was the first Roman Catholic Archbishop of Wellington, Metropolitan of New Zealand. Life Redwood was born on 8 April 1839 on the Tixall estate, Staffordshire, England, a k ...

(1839–1935) were his uncles. The Redwood family members were all staunch Catholics and his uncle Francis was the first

Archbishop of Wellington The Catholic Archdiocese of Wellington is the Latin Church metropolitan archdiocese of New Zealand. Catholics number about 83,214 (2006 census). Parishes number 22 and the archdiocese extends over central New Zealand between Levin and Masterton i ...

. Vernon Redwood was educated by the Christian Brothers in New Zealand before coming to Australia in 1893 where he found work on Westbrook Station where one of his duties was the cutting of prickly pear. In 1895 he became a maltster at the Perkins & Co brewery in

Toowoomba Toowoomba ( , nicknamed 'The Garden City' and 'T-Bar') is a city in the Toowoomba Region of the Darling Downs, Queensland, Australia. It is west of Queensland's capital city Brisbane by road. The urban population of Toowoomba as of the 2021 C ...

and many of his brothers joined him as maltsters. In 1897, his parents also emigrated to Queensland, with his father joining his sons in the malting business. In the end, only four of his siblings remained in New Zealand. In 1902, he established his own maltings business. In 1904 the business was sold to William Jones & Son, and he was its general manager until 1913. In 1913 he established the Redwood Toowoomba Grain Exchange but the business quickly failed and was

liquidated Liquidation is the process in accounting by which a company is brought to an end in Canada, United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, and many other countries. The assets and property of the company are redistrib ...

later the same year. After being awarded £500 in a libel action against the

Darling Downs Gazette The ''Darling Downs Gazette'' was a newspaper published from 1848 to 1922 in Drayton and Toowoomba in Queensland, Australia. History ''The Darling Downs Gazette and General Advertiser'' was founded in 1858 by Arthur Sidney Lyon. The first issu ...

, he moved to Europe and settled in London where he became a member of an anti-prohibitionist group, the Fellowship of Freedom and Reform. In 1896 he married Mary Werkin Wakefield and together had 3 sons and four daughters.Family history research
— Queensland Government births, deaths, marriages, and divorces. Retrieved 23 February 2016. He died in London in 1954.

Political career

Redwood was a member of the Gowrie Shire Council and for some time was an Alderman on the Toowoomba City Council including its mayor in 1910. At the 1904 Queensland state elections he stood for the two-member seat of Drayton and Toowoomba but was beaten by fellow Ministerialists James Tolmie and John Fogarty. When Fogarty died later that same year Redwood stood at the

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

but was once again beaten, this time by the

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

candidate,

Edward Smart Lieutenant General Edward Kenneth Smart, (23 May 1891 – 2 May 1961) was a career officer in the Australian Army, and subsequently a diplomat. Early years Ken Smart was born 23 May 1891 in Kew, an inner suburb of Melbourne, Australia, and w ...

. He finally won the seat at the 1907 state election but held it for only two years before his defeat in

1909 Events January–February * January 4 – Explorer Aeneas Mackintosh of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition escaped death by fleeing across ice floes. * January 7 – Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama. * Januar ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Redwood, Vernon Charles Members of the Queensland Legislative Assembly 1873 births 1954 deaths People from Blenheim, New Zealand