Richard Speight

This article describes an Australian Railway Commissioner and MP. The American actor with the same name is under Richard Speight .

Richard Speight (born December 2, 1838 in Selby , Yorkshire , † September 19, 1901 in Perth , Western Australia ) was an England- born railway commissioner who served in the Australian state of Victoria between 1883 and 1892 . In later years Speight was briefly a member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly .

biography

Speight was born in Selby, Yorkshire, England. From his youth he was in the service of the Midland Railway Company until he reached a position in a responsible position in management. Speight accepted the appeal to the post of railway commissioner in the Railways Department of Victoria in 1883 . His task was to implement the Railway Construction Act 1884 , together with his fellow Commissioners AJ Agg and R. Ford, which provided for the construction of 59 new railway lines and other structures. The naturally conservative Speight tended to invest in the quality of infrastructure in order to keep operating and maintenance costs down, but this attitude was in opposition to that of political leaders like Thomas Bent and John Woods ; they believed that Speight had overused the state.

Amid allegations of corruption and mismanagement, and amid deteriorating economic conditions, Speight and the other commissioners resigned in 1892 after the Railways Act 1892 stripped the commissioners of responsibility for the construction of the railways, largely disempowering the commission. Pretty soon afterwards he sued David Syme , then editor of The Age newspaper, for payment of £ 25,000 for alleged defamation . Speight lost nine of the ten cases and received farthing damages in the case he won.

He moved to Western Australia , where he moved into the private sector and became Director of Jarrahdale Jarrah Forests and Railways. In the 1901 election to the Western Australian Legislative Assembly , Speight won the North Perth seat as an independent candidate.

When he died on September 19, 1901, he left eight children and was buried in Karrakatta Cemetery .

supporting documents

1. ^ Michael Venn: Speight, Richard (1838-1901) . In: Australian Dictionary of Biography . National Center of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved April 6, 2012.
2. ↑ Members of the Legislative Assembly since 1890: An Alphabetical Listing (PDF) In: The Western Australian Parliamentary Handbook . Parliamentary Library of Western Australia. Archived from the original on March 22, 2012. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 6, 2012.