The Reverend Doctor William Lambie Nelson (20 September 1808 – 13 June 1887)
— Interment.net. Retrieved 29 January 2015. was an Australian politician who was briefly a

Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly This is a list of members of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland, the state parliament of Queensland, sorted by parliament. See also * Queensland Legislative Assembly electoral districts This is a list of current and former electoral div ...

Early life

Rev. Nelson was of Scottish origin and arrived in Australia in 1853 after being invited by the Sydney Presbytery to take spiritual charge of the Presbyterians in the district of

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...

. He resigned from this position in 1860 to take up pastoral pursuits on the

Moonie River The Moonie River (Mooni River) is a river in Shire of Balonne, Queensland and Walgett Shire, New South Wales, both in Australia. It is a perennial river of the Barwon catchment within the Murray–Darling basin. Name The river was named '' ...

. Prior to his resignation, he was encouraging subscriptions for a new Church of Scotland to be built in Toowoomba, and he was identified as a Presbyterian minister in Toowoomba in 1868.

Politics

William Nelson was elected to 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 ...

in the three-member electorate of

West Moreton West Moreton is a region of the Australian state of Queensland, consisting of the entire rural western portion of South East Queensland. It sits inland from both the Brisbane metropolitan area and the Gold Coast and to the east of the Darling Do ...

on 3 May 1860 in the inaugural 1860 Queensland colonial election. However, Mr Chubb on behalf of one of the unsuccessful candidates, Pollett Cardew, protested against the election of the Reverend Nelson as he was a priest in holy orders and was therefore disqualified from being elected, but the Rev. Nelson claimed that he had resigned his religious role. On 22 June 1860, the Committee on Elections ruled that the Rev. Nelson was disqualified and a new election must be called to replace him. Joseph Fleming won the resulting by-election on 9 July 1860.

Personal life

Although his own political career was very brief, William Lambie Nelson's son Hugh Muir Nelson went on to be

Premier of Queensland The premier of Queensland is the head of government in the Australian state of Queensland. By convention the premier is the leader of the party with a parliamentary majority in the unicameral Legislative Assembly of Queensland. The premier is ap ...

. His homestead

Gabbinbar Gabbinbar is a heritage-listed villa at 344-376 Ramsay Street, Toowoomba, Middle Ridge, Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by architect Willoughby Powell for the Rev. Dr. William Lambie Nelson and built in 1876 by Richar ...

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 ...

was listed on the

Queensland Heritage Register The Queensland Heritage Register is a heritage register, a statutory list of places in Queensland, Australia that are protected by Queensland legislation, the Queensland Heritage Act 1992. It is maintained by the Queensland Heritage Council. As a ...

on 21 October 1992. Nelson died in 1887 and was buried in Southport General Cemetery.

References

Attribution

External links

* — Obituary {{DEFAULTSORT:Nelson, William Lambie Members of the Queensland Legislative Assembly 1807 births 1887 deaths Articles incorporating text from the Queensland Heritage Register 19th-century Australian politicians Scottish emigrants to colonial Australia