Early life

Eagar was born in Killarney

Killarney

Killarney is a town in County Kerry, southwestern Ireland. The town is located north of the MacGillicuddy Reeks, on the northeastern shore of the Lough Lein/Leane which are part of Killarney National Park. The town and its surrounding region are home to St...

, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

. His parents were landed gentry

Landed gentry

Landed gentry is a traditional British social class, consisting of land owners who could live entirely off rental income. Often they worked only in an administrative capacity looking after the management of their own lands....

 so he was well educated. He trained as a solicitor

Solicitor

Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...

 and became an attorney

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

 to His Majesty's Courts in Ireland. In 1809 he was charged with forging a bill of exchange, and he was convicted and sentenced to death. He pleaded for clemency and either his family influence or his conversion to Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 saw him gaoled for 18 months until he was transported to Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

. The chaplain sent with him to Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 a letter to Reverend Samuel Marsden

Samuel Marsden

Samuel Marsden was an English born Anglican cleric and a prominent member of the Church Missionary Society, believed to have introduced Christianity to New Zealand...

 that said, "Edward Eagar has really become a new creature."

Transportation

The ship Providence arrived in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 in 1811 and was assigned to teach children. He soon commenced Bible classes in the Windsor district. He was then given charge of the local school. In 1812 he met with two newcomers, Thomas Bowden and John Hoskin, and they formed the first membership of the first Methodist church in Australia, known as Wesley Mission

Wesley Mission

Wesley Mission is a name used by several Uniting Church congregations which are a part the Uniting Missions Network of UnitingCare Australia. Wesley Missions grew out of the inner city missions of the pre-union Methodist Church of Australasia...

, on 12 March 1812. Eagar wrote to the Methodist Conference in England to "send us a Minister lest we die in our sins". The Minister, Reverend Samuel Leigh, arrived in 1815, and Eagar introduced him to Governor Macquarie. Reverend Leigh was the first Methodist minister in Australia, and he is remembered by the Leigh Memorial Church in Parramatta

Parramatta, New South Wales

Parramatta is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located in Greater Western Sydney west of the Sydney central business district on the banks of the Parramatta River. Parramatta is the administrative seat of the Local Government Area of the City of Parramatta...

.

Eagar assisted in founding the Sydney Benevolent Society, and subsequently the Royal Women's Hospital at Paddington, the British and Foreign Bible Society

British and Foreign Bible Society

The British and Foreign Bible Society, often known in England and Wales as simply as Bible Society, is a non-denominational Christian Bible society with charity status whose purpose is to make the Bible available throughout the world....

, and the Australian Religious Tract Society

Religious Tract Society

The Religious Tract Society, founded 1799, 56 Paternoster Row and 65 St. Paul's Chuchyard, was the original name of a major British publisher of Christian literature intended initially for evangelism, and including literature aimed at children, women, and the poor.The RTS is also notable for being...

. He established the Society for the Protection and Civilisation of Distressed Islanders of the South Seas. He also planned the first mission to Aboriginal Australians. He also put up 10 per cent of the funding capital to establish the Bank of New South Wales, now known as Westpac

Westpac

Westpac , is a multinational financial services, one of the Australian "big four" banks and the second-largest bank in New Zealand....

, but he was angry that he was not allowed to become a director of the bank because he had been a convict.

Convict Rights

In 1818 Eagar was granted a full pardon. However, Judge Jeffery Hart Bent

Jeffery Hart Bent

Jeffery Hart Bent, occasionally known as Geoffrey Hart Bent was the first judge in the colony of New South Wales, Australia.-Early life:...

 did not let him forget he had been a convict and had been discarded from practice as a lawyer. He lost a court case because pardoned convicts did not have a right to own property, to sue, to give evidence in court or to have other civil rights. Other emancipated convicts also saw their rights denied. So Eagar took up their case with the British Government. He fought for trial by jury and for freedom to trade commercially. This was the first Australian attempt to change government policy. Dr William Redfern

William Redfern

William Redfern was a leading surgeon in early colonial New South Wales.-Early life:Redfern appears to have been born in Canada and raised in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England...

, after whom the Sydney suburb of Redfern is named, and Edward Eagar sailed to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1821 to argue the case in the Court of St. James's

Court of St. James's

The Court of St James's is the royal court of the United Kingdom. It previously had the same function in the Kingdom of England and in the Kingdom of Great Britain .-Overview:...

 on behalf of other emancipated

Emancipist

An emancipist was any of the convicts sentenced and transported under the convict system to Australia, who had been given conditional or absolute pardons...

 convicts. Eagar fought the case for 20 years, and eventually won.

Legacy

Eagar was Australia's first liberal

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 political agitator. He left his wife and three sons behind, taking his daughter with him to London. He was never to return. He married a 16-year-old girl and they had 10 children. His Sydney wife, Jemima, moved into a new house in Macquarie Street, just down the road from Parliament House, with William Wentworth

William Wentworth

William Charles Wentworth was an Australian poet, explorer, journalist and politician, and one of the leading figures of early colonial New South Wales...

, with whom she had a son. At the time Wentworth was arguably Australia's most famous citizen. He was the first 'European' to cross the Blue Mountains and the most powerful member of the Legislative Council. Eagar's son Geoffrey

Geoffrey Eagar

Geoffrey Eagar was an accountant and Treasurer of the Government of New South Wales, Australia.Eagar was born in Sydney, son of Edward, an emancipated convict who helped found the Westpac Bank, then known as the Bank of New South Wales. Edward left Australia to take a legal battle over the rights...

 became the first accountant of the Bank of New South Wales, a leading public servant, a member of the Legislative Council and eventually Treasurer of New South Wales—described as the best Treasurer of the nineteenth century—and a long-serving Cabinet Minister.

The Wesley Mission's

Wesley Mission

Wesley Mission is a name used by several Uniting Church congregations which are a part the Uniting Missions Network of UnitingCare Australia. Wesley Missions grew out of the inner city missions of the pre-union Methodist Church of Australasia...

 Edward Eagar Lodge in Surry Hills is named after Edward.