William John Fergusson was a solicitor and politician from New South Wales, Australia. He was a practicing solicitor in Sydney before entering politics, having been admitted in March 1876. 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 ...

for Glen Innes, at the 1880 election, serving until 1887. Fergusson supported William Clarke's attempts to form a third party, however these failed with no other parliamentarian joining them, and Fergusson sat with the opposition to the

ministry Ministry may refer to: Government * Ministry (collective executive), the complete body of government ministers under the leadership of a prime minister * Ministry (government department), a department of a government Religion * Christian ...

Patrick Jennings Sir Patrick Alfred Jennings, (20 March 183111 July 1897) was an Irish-Australian politician and Premier of New South Wales. Early life Jennings was born at Newry, Ireland, the son of Francis Jennings, a well-known merchant in that town. He ...

. Political parties emerged in New South Wales in 1887, divided on fiscal lines, and despite his previous opposition to Jennings, Fergusson stood as a candidate at the 1887 election for Wentworth, finishing a distant fourth. Very little is known of his biography, with his parliamentary biography bereft of the usual details. On 14 May 1881 he married Emily Maud Mary York. He was a partner in the legal firm Fergusson and Broad and by 1893 the partnership was in difficulty, having received £1,000 from a client and £500 went missing. The explanation offered by his partner was that Fergusson, who was in England, had sent a draft and the money lodged in the bank had been used to pay that draft. He was a trustee of the will of James York, and in 1893 the beneficiaries, including his wife sought to have him removed as a trustee and to account for the money received by him. It appears that he never returned to Australia, and his wife obtained a divorce in 1912 on the grounds of desertion. Fergusson is believed to have died in

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 ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fergusson, William Year of birth missing Year of death missing Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly