George Marsden Waterhouse

George Marsden Waterhouse

George Marsden Waterhouse (born April 6, 1824 in Penzance , Cornwall , England , † August 6, 1906 in Torquay , Devon , England) was the seventh Prime Minister of New Zealand . He ruled from October 11, 1872 to March 3, 1873. He had previously been Prime Minister of South Australia from October 8, 1861 to July 3, 1863 . Waterhouse is the only politician to have served as Prime Minister of two different British colonies.

Australia

The in Kingswood School , a prestigious Wesleyan college in Bath wandered, educated Waterhouse in 1839 at the age of 15 years with his family to Tasmania , since his father, Reverend John Waterhouse, the General Superintendent of the Wesleyan missions in Australia had been appointed and Polynesia. After four years in Hobart , Waterhouse moved to Adelaide . There he worked successfully as a dealer . In 1848 he married Lydia Giles; the marriage remained childless, but the couple adopted two daughters.

In August 1851, Waterhouse was elected to the colony's Legislative Council as a member of the East Torrens constituency. He had to resign three years later because of health problems. He visited the United States and England and returned to Australia in 1856. In 1857 he was re-elected, but resigned after just a few months, because he had rejected the governor's offer to take a seat in the first government of the now self-governing colony.

The advocate of free trade was elected a third time in the Legislative Council in 1860. There he campaigned for uniform customs tariffs across Australia. From May 1860 to February 1861 Waterhouse was clerk to the government of Thomas Reynolds . After his resignation, Waterhouse took over the office of Prime Minister. In July 1863, the government broke up on accusations of financial manipulation and misuse of the immigrant fund. In 1864 he gave up his parliamentary mandate.

New Zealand

In 1869 Waterhouse emigrated to New Zealand, where he bought a sheep farm with 18,000 animals. A short time later he was also politically active in New Zealand. In May 1870 he was elected to parliament, in November 1871 he was a member of William Fox's cabinet for three weeks . His successor Edward Stafford lost a vote of no confidence in October 1872 and Waterhouse took the office of Prime Minister on the advice of Finance Minister Julius Vogel . But less than five months later, Waterhouse surprisingly resigned. He was of the opinion that as a member of the House of Lords he had only limited opportunities to head the cabinet.

Waterhouse remained an MP after his resignation. In 1879, Prime Minister John Hall wanted to offer him a ministerial post, but he refused. In 1884 he was Deputy Governor and in 1887 Speaker of the House of Lords. In 1889 he finally returned to his home country England to spend a peaceful retirement there. There he died at the age of 82.

literature

• Waterhouse, George Marsden ( Encyclopedia of New Zealand article 1966 )
• Jean F. Tregenza: Waterhouse, George Marsden (1824-1906) . In: Douglas Pike (Ed.): Australian Dictionary of Biography . Volume 6. Melbourne University Press, Carlton (Victoria) 1976, ISBN 0-522-84108-2 (English).