Charles Clifford (politician)

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Charles Clifford , 1860
Members of the House of Representatives with Charles Clifford in the middle, 1860

Sir Charles Clifford (born January 1, 1813 in Scotforth , Lancashire , England , † February 27, 1893 , London , England) was a New Zealand politician and the first Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives ( Speaker of Parliament).

Early life

Charles Clifford was on 1 January 1813 as the first child of the family of George Lambert Clifford and Mary Coyney on the estate Mount Vernon in the county of Lancashire born. His parents were Roman Catholic with aristocratic ancestry and Charles was a cousin of Henry William Petre , William Vavasour and Frederick Weld , all involved in the colonization of New Zealand, the latter later becoming the sixth Prime Minister of New Zealand .

Clifford received his secondary education at the Catholic Stonyhurst College in Clitheroe , which had a Jesuit tradition. After graduating from college , he found a job as an engineer with the London and North Western Railway .

New Zealand

Together with William Vavasour , Clifford traveled to New Zealand with the George Fyfe in June 1842 . Funded by their fathers, they settled in Wellington , organized by the New Zealand Company , and dabbled in agriculture, transportation, and commissioning agencies. Clifford later teamed up with Frederick Weld and invested in sheep farming in Wairarapa , Marlborough and North Canterbury .

In 1844, Clifford was appointed Justice of the Peace in the Wellington settlement and on May 13, 1844 was appointed a non-official member of the Legislative Council, but gave up the office due to differences with the official members of the council at the end of the year.

Clifford was active in Wellington in 1845 in the formation of a vigilante group against insurgent Māori and in 1846 was Magistrate in Wellington . Clifford became a member of the Wellington Settlers' Constitutional Association , in whose formation he was involved, and traveled to England in April 1848 to promote self-government for the settlers of Wellington in the Colonial Office (British Colonial Office ) . When in 1852 the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 guaranteed the colony its own government and self-government, Clifford was able to achieve a seat on the Wellington Provincial Council by election and was elected the first speaker of the council at the first meeting of the council in October 1853 . At the constituent meeting of New Zealand's first House of Representatives on May 26, 1854, Clifford was also elected speaker and went down in New Zealand's history as the country's youngest Speaker of the House at the age of 41 . He held the office until the dissolution of the House of Representatives on November 5, 1860.

In December of that year he went back to England with his family, but remained closely connected to New Zealand. He advised British government agencies on New Zealand affairs, donated a mace (scepter) and designed dresses for the office of speaker in 1866, and in 1871 sent a portrait of himself for a gallery of speakers for the House of Representatives . Mace and the picture gallery were destroyed in a fire in 1907.

Clifford died in London on February 27, 1893 at the age of 80.

family

On January 13, 1847, Clifford married Mary Ann Hercy , daughter of a Justice of the Peace and deputy lieutenant from Berkshire , England. The marriage resulted in a daughter and four sons.

Honors

  • 1858 - beaten to Knight Batchelor
  • The Baron - 1887 Flaxbourne, Marlborough appointed

literature

  • Sir Charles Clifford . In: The Cyclopedia of New Zealand . Wellington 1897 ( online [accessed March 24, 2018]).
  • James Oakley Wilson : Clifford, Sir Charles, Bt. . In: Alexander Hare McLintock (Ed.): An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand . Wellington 1966 ( online [accessed March 24, 2018]).
  • HAL Laing, KA Simpson : Clifford, Charles . In: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography , 1769-1869 . Volume I . Allen & Unwin , Wellington 1990 (English, online [accessed March 24, 2018]).

Web links

Commons : Sir Charles Clifford, 1st Baronet  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Laing, Simpson : Clifford, Charles . In: The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography . 1990.
  2. ↑ a b c d Wilson : Clifford, Sir Charles, Bt. . In: An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand . 1966.
  3. ↑ Sir Charles Clifford . In: The Cyclopedia of New Zealand . 1897, p.  112 .
personal data
SURNAME Clifford, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION New Zealand politician, Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1813
PLACE OF BIRTH Scotforth , Lancashire , England
DATE OF DEATH February 27, 1893
Place of death London , England