{{short description|Australian politician}} {{for|the philosopher William Henry Walsh|W. H. Walsh}} {{Use dmy dates|date=February 2015}} {{Use Australian English|date=February 2015}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = The Honourable | name = William Henry Walsh | honorific_suffix = {{postnominals|country=AUS|size=100%|JP}} | image = Wiliam Henry Walsh (1828-1888).jpg | caption = W. H. Walsh about 1860 | office = Speaker of the Queensland Legislative Assembly | term_start = 6 January 1874 | term_end = 20 July 1876 | predecessor = Frederick Forbes | successor = Henry King | constituency = Warrego | constituency_AM1 = Leichhardt | assembly1 = New South Wales Legislative | term_start1 = 15 June 1859 | term_end1 = 10 December 1859 | predecessor1 = New seat | successor1 = Seat abolished | constituency_AM2 = Maryborough | assembly2 = Queensland Legislative | term_start2 = 1 February 1865 | term_end2 = 4 November 1873 | predecessor2 = New seat | successor2 = Berkeley Moreton | constituency_AM3 = Warrego | assembly3 = Queensland Legislative | term_start3 = 4 November 1873 | term_end3 = 12 December 1878 | predecessor3 = Archibald Buchanan | successor3 = Ernest Stevens | office4 = Member of the Queensland Legislative Council | term_start4 = 20 February 1879 | term_end4 = 5 April 1888 | birth_date = {{Birth date|1823|12|18|df=y}} | birth_place = Milton, Berkshire, England | death_date = {{death date and age|1888|4|5|1823|12|18|df=y}} | death_place = Brisbane, Queensland, Australia | resting_place = Toowong Cemetery | birth_name = William Henry Walsh | party = | other_party = | spouse = Elizabeth Brown (b.1828 m.1857 d.1913) | children = Kathleen Maude Walsh, Eliza Walsh, Western Walsh, Alfred Degilbo Walsh, Hilda Walsh, William Walsh & Nugent Walsh | alma_mater = | occupation = Squatter, Investor | relations = }}
'''William Henry Walsh''' {{postnominals|country=AUS|size=100%|JP}} (18 December 1823 – 5 April 1888) was an Australian pioneer pastoralist or squatter and politician in early Queensland.<ref>{{cite news |date=15 October 1852 |title=Government Gazette Appointments and Employment |page=1501 |newspaper=New South Wales Government Gazette |issue=99 |location=New South Wales, Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article230052849 |accessdate=18 August 2023 |via=National Library of Australia |archive-date=11 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240311045645/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/230052849 |url-status=live }}</ref> He was a Member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1859, Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly 1865–1878, and a Member of the Queensland Legislative Council 1879–1888. He was the Queensland Minister of the Crown 1870–1873, Speaker in the Queensland Legislative Assembly from 6 January 1874 to 20 July 1876.
==Early life== Walsh was supposedly born on 18 December 1823 at Milton, Berkshire, England, son of a solicitor, Charles Walsh, and his wife Elizabeth.
==Pastoralist in New South Wales and Queensland== {{More citations needed section|date=December 2022}} He migrated to Australia on the ''Mary Sharp'' arriving 11 June 1844, afterwards gaining a few years of colonial experience working for David Perrier at Bathurst. He then went north to begin a squatting career of his own. In early 1847 he set up, for his former employer, a new station on the Macintyre River in the south-eastern part of the territory of the future Queensland. Shortly thereafter he went into the northern 'unknown' with men and a large flock of sheep financed by the Sydney-based Griffith, Fanning & Co. He subsequently formed the Degilbo and Monduran stations near the present day township of Gayndah in the North Burnett.
During this time, he witnessed the murder of settlers by local Indigenous people and almost was killed himself.<ref>{{cite news |date=14 May 1870 |title=REMINISCENCES OF ANOTHER WIDE BAY PIONEER. |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article148018636 |accessdate=11 March 2024 |newspaper=Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser |location=Queensland, Australia |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=901}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |date=24 May 1870 |title=REMINISCENCES OF ANOTHER WIDE BAY PIONEER. |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article148016481 |accessdate=11 March 2024 |newspaper=Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser |location=Queensland, Australia |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=905}}</ref> In 1850, following the murder of settler Gregory Blaxland, Walsh participated in a massacre of indigenous people on Paddy's Island,<ref>{{Citation |author1=Nolan, Janette Gay |title=A history of Bundaberg, 1840-1920 |pages=34–44 |publication-date=1978-01-01 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/31785617 |access-date=11 March 2024 |publisher=The University of Queensland, School of History, Philosophy, Religion, and Classics}}</ref> details of which he would give during Queensland parliamentary debate several decades later.<ref>Clem Lack ‘One hundred years young: Bundaberg, the city of charm, 1867–1967' 56 pages publ. Bundaberg 'News-Mail' 23 May 1967.</ref>
Working still for the same company, of which he had then become a co-proprietor, Walsh went further north in July 1853. During this venture he and his men made their mark on Queensland history as the first whites to 'blaze the track' of what is now the section of Bruce Highway between Degilbo in the Burnett to the Boyne Valley at Port Curtis, now Gladstone. Here Walsh formed yet another sheep station which he named Milton, allegedly after his birthplace or childhood home.
On 20 February 1857 at Parramatta, New South Wales, he married the Danish-born (yet Scottish and English descended) Elizabeth Brown (1828–1913), daughter of the Copenhagen-born merchant, John Brown (proprietor of Coulston House, Paterson River, from 1829 to 1837 the proprietor of the North Zealand situated Kokkedal Castle in Denmark).<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3722331 |title=Family Notices. |newspaper=The Moreton Bay Courier |location=Brisbane |date=7 March 1857 |accessdate=3 January 2014 |page=2 |via=Trove |archive-date=11 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240311045457/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/3722331 |url-status=live }}</ref>
Afterwards he settled initially as the part owner, later sole proprietor of the vast Monduran and Degilbo stations, setting up the latter as a domicile for himself and his growing family.
==Political life== {{More citations needed section|date=December 2022}} He was a Member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1859,<ref name=nsw>{{cite NSW Parliament |id=539 |former=Yes |title=Mr William Henry Walsh (1823–1888) |accessdate=23 June 2019}}</ref> Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly from 1865 to 1878, and a Member of the Queensland Legislative Council, from 1879 to 1888. He was the Queensland Minister of the Crown from 1870 to 1873, Speaker in the Queensland Legislative Assembly from 6 January 1874 to 20 July 1876.<ref name=qp>{{cite web|title=Former Members|publisher=Parliament of Queensland|year=2015|url=http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/members/former/bio?id=3266480551|accessdate=9 February 2015|archive-date=9 February 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150209115756/http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/members/former/bio?id=3266480551|url-status=live}}</ref>
Walsh was arguably the most conspicuous and outspoken Tory-conservative politicians in northern New South Wales and Queensland in the period up to the 1870s.
He is today best known for his two decade long strong-worded opposition to the Queensland's Native Police Force and the lack of protection of indigenous people in Queensland, a position which brought him into conflict with Queensland's first Governor Sir George Ferguson Bowen and a number of other Queensland graziers.
In parliament on 4 October 1867 the then minister for police "Colonial Secretary" (later Queensland Premier), Arthur Hunter Palmer, brought an end to Walsh decade long crusade by ironically defending Walsh "perfect right to...pursue his monomania on the subject to any extent he pleased."
Walsh is equally well known for his defence for the Queensland's sugar industry and its use of Melanesians, so-called Kanaka, labour and dismissal that the accusation of this as slavery was anything more than working-class prejudices.
==Later life== On 4 April 1888, he was walking from his home in Bulimba towards the Brisbane CBD along Shaftson Road. As he passed the ropeworks, he was hit by a parcel delivery van driver and was knocked unconscious and died the following day (5 April 1888).<ref name=obit>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article19931563 |title=Death of the Hon. W.H. Walsh. |newspaper=The Queenslander |date=7 April 1888 |accessdate=3 January 2014 |page=528 |via=Trove |archive-date=11 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240311045648/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/19931563 |url-status=live }}</ref> He was buried in Toowong Cemetery.<ref name="Brisbane City Council – Online – Grave Location Search – Toowong Cemetery – Walsh">{{cite web|url=https://online.brisbane.qld.gov.au/cemeteries/cemeteries_step3.jsp?mapdisplay=142488|title=Brisbane City Council – Online – Grave Location Search|publisher=Brisbane City Council|accessdate=22 October 2011|archive-date=3 January 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140103182253/https://online.brisbane.qld.gov.au/cemeteries/cemeteries_step3.jsp?mapdisplay=142488|url-status=live}}</ref>
==Named in his honour== A number of Queensland places were named after him: * the Walsh River<ref name=qpn1>{{cite QPN|36381|Walsh River|accessdate=4 January 2013}}</ref> * the Shire of Walsh (previously the Walsh Division)<ref name=qp3>{{cite web|title=Walsh Shire|url=http://www.queenslandplaces.com.au/walsh-shire|work=Queensland Places|publisher=Centre for the Government of Queensland, University of Queensland|accessdate=3 January 2014|archive-date=3 January 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140103142302/http://www.queenslandplaces.com.au/walsh-shire|url-status=live}}</ref> * Mount Walsh which is now in the Mount Walsh National Park * Walshs Pyramid<ref name=qpn2>{{cite QPN|36384|Walshs Pyramid|accessdate=4 January 2013}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== * Ørsted-Jensen: Robert: ''The Right To Live – the Troubled Conscience of an Australian Journalist'' (yet unpublished thesis and manuscript)
==External links== * {{cite web|last=Denholm|first=David|title=Walsh, William Henry (1823–1888)|url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/walsh-william-henry-4795|work=Australian Dictionary of Biography|publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University|author2=H. J. Gibbney }} {{s-start}} {{s-par|au-nsw-la}} {{s-new|seat}} {{s-ttl |title= Member for Leichhardt|years=1859}} {{s-non|reason=Abolished}} {{s-par|au-qld}} {{s-bef|before=Frederick Forbes}} {{s-ttl|title=Speaker of the Legislative Assembly|years=1874 – 1876}} {{s-aft|after=Henry King}} {{s-new|seat}} {{s-ttl |title= Member for Maryborough|years=1865–1873}} {{s-aft|after=Berkeley Moreton}} {{s-bef|before= Archibald Buchanan}} {{s-ttl |title= Member for Warrego|years=1873–1878}} {{s-aft|after=Ernest Stevens}} {{s-end}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Walsh, William Henry}} Category:1823 births Category:1888 deaths Category:Members of the Queensland Legislative Assembly Category:Members of the Queensland Legislative Council Category:Speakers of the Queensland Legislative Assembly Category:Pedestrian road incident deaths Category:Road incident deaths in Queensland Category:Burials at Toowong Cemetery Category:Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly Category:19th-century Australian politicians Category:19th-century squatters