William Bede Dalley - Political Career

Political Career

In 1857 Dalley was elected to the Legislative Assembly as one of the representatives of Sydney (City). In 1858, he successfully contested Cumberland Boroughs to help Charles Cowper's re-election in Sydney. He pressed for several reforms including an unsuccessful attempt to abolish the death penalty for rape. He joined the second Cowper ministry as Solicitor-General in November 1858, but held this position for only three months. In 1859, he became the member for Windsor, but resigned in February 1860 in order to visit Europe. He returned to Sydney in early 1861, and later in the year he was appointed a commissioner of emigration by the New South Wales government, went to England in 1861 with his fellow commissioner Henry Parkes, and was away about a year. He held many successful meetings in southern England and in Ireland.

After his return to Australia in 1862, Dalley took up his legal practice again and became the leading counsel in criminal cases in Sydney and represented Carcoar from 1862 to 1864. In 1868, he defended Henry James O'Farrell for attempting to assassinate Prince Alfred, on grounds of insanity, but was not able to prevent him from being speedily hanged. In 1872, he married an Anglican, Eleanor Long, which strained his relations with the Catholic Church. She died of typhoid fever in 1881, leaving him with three young children. He supported a petition for the freeing of Frank Gardiner, by his sisters on the grounds of the harshness of his sentence, which led to his freeing and exile in 1874, and the collapse of the Parkes government. He became a QC in 1877.