Edward Wittenoom

Sir Edward Horne Wittenoom KCMG (12 February 1854 – 5 March 1936) was an Australian politician who served intermittently in the Legislative Council of Western Australia between 1883 and 1934, including as President of the Legislative Council from 1922 to 1926. He sat in the Legislative Council from 1883 to 1884, 1885 to 1886, 1894 to 1898, 1902 to 1906, and finally from 1910 to 1934. Wittenoom was a minister in the government of Sir John Forrest, and was also Agent-General for Western Australia between 1898 and 1901.

Biography

Early life Born in Fremantle, Western Australia on 12 February 1854, Wittenoom was the son of bank director and pastoralist Charles Wittenoom. He was educated at Bishop Hale's School (now Hale School) in Perth, then at 15 worked at Bowes sheep station at Northampton from the age of 15. In 1874, he took up sheep farming with his brother Frank at Yuin in the Murchison district, before returning to Bowes in 1877 to lease and manage it. On 23 April 1878 he married Laura Habgood; they had two sons and three daughters.

While in the UK, he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1900, being the last KCMG to be personally invested by Queen Victoria at Osborne House prior to her death in January 1901. He returned to state politics in the following election, winning a North Province seat in the Legislative Council on 13 May 1910. He held this seat for 24 years, finally losing after declining to contest the election of 12 May 1934. During this period, he was President of the Legislative Council from 27 July 1922 to 10 August 1926. He also spent a brief period as consul for France in Western Australia.