Henry Parkes G.C.M.G.

Sir Henry Parkes, (27 May 1815 – 27 April 1896) was a colonial Australian politician and the longest-serving non-consecutive premier of the Colony of New South Wales, the present-day state of New South Wales in the Commonwealth of Australia. He has been referred to as the "Father of Federation" due to his early promotion for the federation of the six colonies of Australia, as an early critic of British convict transportation and as a proponent for the expansion of the Australian continental rail network. Parkes delivered his famous Tenterfield Oration in 1889, which yielded a federal conference in 1890 and a Constitutional Convention in 1891, the first of a series of meetings that led to…

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