The members of the Australian Parliament assembled for the first time in Melbourne on 9 May 1901. One hundred and eleven members, comprising 36 senators and 75 members of the House of Representatives, had been elected in polls held in all states on the 29th or 30th March.
111 First Australian Parliament Geocache series. BYO PEN
Edward Harney was born in Dublin, Ireland and migrated to Coolgardie, Western Australia in the mid-1890s. Little is known of his life prior to entering federal politics other than that he was a lawyer.
In 1901 Harney, a Freetrader, was elected to represent Western Australia in the Senate at the first federal election. Harney attended less than one-quarter of the sittings of the Senate, and did not stand for re-election in 1903.
In 1905 Harney was appointed King’s Counsel and shortly afterwards moved to England to further his legal career. In 1922 he became a Member of the British House of Commons for South Shields and served until his death in 1929. A persuasive speaker, Harney was known as the “Demosthenes from the West”.