William Bede Dalley
Encyclopedia
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...
n politician and barrister and the first Australian appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...
. He was a leading lay representative and champion of the Catholic community and was known for his parliamentary and legal eloquence.
Early life
Dalley was born at SydneySydney
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 1831 son of Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
parents, John Dalley and Catherine Spillane, who were both convicts. He was educated at the Sydney College and St Mary's College. He was called to the bar in 1856.
Political career
New South Wales Legislative Assembly
The Legislative Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The other chamber is the Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament House in the state capital, Sydney...
as one of the representatives of Sydney (City)
Electoral district of Sydney
Sydney is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Australian state of New South Wales in Inner Sydney. It includes the commercial centre of the Sydney CBD; the suburbs and localities of Barangaroo, Broadway, Chinatown, Chippendale, Darling Harbour, Dawes Point, Elizabeth Bay,...
. In 1858, he successfully contested Cumberland Boroughs
Electoral district of Cumberland Boroughs
Cumberland Boroughs was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales from 1856 to 1859, consisting of the Cumberland County towns of Richmond, Windsor, and Liverpool, and Campbelltown, but not the surrounding rural areas, which were in Cumberland and...
to help Charles Cowper
Charles Cowper
Sir Charles Cowper, KCMG was an Australian politician and the Premier of New South Wales on five different occasions from 1856 to 1870....
's re-election in Sydney. He pressed for several reforms including an unsuccessful attempt to abolish the death penalty for rape. He joined the second Cowper
Charles Cowper
Sir Charles Cowper, KCMG was an Australian politician and the Premier of New South Wales on five different occasions from 1856 to 1870....
ministry as Solicitor-General in November 1858, but held this position for only three months. In 1859, he became the member for Windsor, but resigned in February 1860 in order to visit Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. He returned to Sydney in early 1861, and later in the year he was appointed a commissioner of emigration by the New South Wales government, went to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1861 with his fellow commissioner Henry Parkes
Henry Parkes
Sir Henry Parkes, GCMG was an Australian statesman, the "Father of Federation." As the earliest advocate of a Federal Council of the colonies of Australia, a precursor to the Federation of Australia, he was the most prominent of the Australian Founding Fathers.Parkes was described during his...
, and was away about a year. He held many successful meetings in southern England and in 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...
.
After his return to Australia in 1862, Dalley took up his legal practice again and became the leading counsel in criminal cases in Sydney and represented Carcoar
Electoral district of Carcoar
Carcoar was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales, originally created in 1859 in the Lithgow area and named after Carcoar. It replaced part of Western Boroughs and part of Bathurst . From 1880 to 1894, it elected two members. It was...
from 1862 to 1864. In 1868, he defended Henry James O'Farrell
Henry James O'Farrell
Henry James O'Farrell is infamously recorded as the first person to attempt a political assassination in Australia. In 1868, he shot and wounded HRH The Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh the second son and fourth child of Queen Victoria.-Biography:...
for attempting to assassinate Prince Alfred
Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was the third Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and reigned from 1893 to 1900. He was also a member of the British Royal Family, the second son and fourth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha...
, on grounds of insanity, but was not able to prevent him from being speedily hanged. In 1872, he married an Anglican, Eleanor Long, which strained his relations with the Catholic Church. She died of typhoid fever
Typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as Typhoid, is a common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi...
in 1881, leaving him with three young children. He supported a petition for the feeeing of Frank Gardiner
Frank Gardiner
Frank Gardiner was a noted Australian bushranger of the 19th century. He was born in Scotland about 1827 and migrated from to Australia as a child with his parents in 1834,. His real name was Francis Christie, though he often used one of several other aliases including Gardiner, Clarke or Christie...
, by his sisters on the grounds of the harshness of his sentence, which led to his freeing and exile in 1874, and the collapse of the Parkes government. He became a QC
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
in 1877.
Attorney-General
In February 1875 Dalley joined the third Robertson ministry as Attorney-General of New South Wales and was nominated to the Legislative CouncilNew South Wales Legislative Council
The New South Wales Legislative Council, or upper house, is one of the two chambers of the parliament of New South Wales in Australia. The other is the Legislative Assembly. Both sit at Parliament House in the state capital, Sydney. The Assembly is referred to as the lower house and the Council as...
. Robertson resigned in March 1877 but was in power again five months later with Dalley in his old position until December. For the next five years Dalley took no part in politics, although in 1881 he petitioned against the Chinese restriction bill on the floor of the Legislative Council and managed to change some of its worst features. In January 1883 he became Attorney-General in the Stuart
Alexander Stuart (Australian politician)
Sir Alexander Stuart KCMG was Premier of New South Wales from 5 January 1883 to 7 October 1885.-Early years:Stuart was born at Edinburgh, the son of Alexander Stuart and his wife Mary, née McKnight. Stuart was educated at the Edinburgh Academy and attended the University of Edinburgh, but did not...
ministry, and in 1884 his Speeches on the Proposed Federal Council for Australasia was published.
In February 1885 Dalley, as Acting-Premier during the absence of Stuart from the colony, offered a detachment of New South Wales troops to go to the Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
. Though there was opposition in some quarters this was taken up with great enthusiasm in others and a contingent was sent. The Stuart ministry resigned in October 1885 and Dalley did not hold office again. In 1887, he joined with Parkes and Cardinal Moran in unsuccessfully pleading against the hangings for the Mount Rennie rape case
Mount Rennie rape case
The Mount Rennie rape case is the only gang rape in Sydney during the 1880s that led to a full conviction of the participants involved in the crime. The attack is sometimes referred to as the "Mount Rennie Outrage"...
.
His health began to weaken and his last two years were spent practically in retirement. He died in the Sydney suburb of Darling Point
Darling Point, New South Wales
Darling Point is a harbourside, eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Darling Point is located 4 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of Woollahra Council....
. One of his sons John Bede Dalley
John Bede Dalley
John Bede Dalley was an Australian journalist and novelist, editor of Melbourne Punch.Dalley was born in Rose Bay, Sydney, the second son of William Bede Dalley and Eleanor Jane, née Long. He was born at Sydney and was educated at St Aloysius' College...
became well-known as a journalist and novelist in Sydney.