John Neild
John Cash Neild was an Australian politician who served as the member for the Paddington electorate in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for three intermittent periods between January 1885 and June 1901. After Federation Neild was elected as a senator representing New South Wales in the federal parliament, where he served until June 1910.
Although he spent his political career as a back-bencher, Neild had a prominent public profile due to his tenacious advocacy for causes he had taken up. In 1886 Neild, a supporter of free trade, delivered a tactical speech in the New South Wales parliament opposing customs duties of nearly nine hours duration, a feat for which he was dubbed 'Jawbone' Neild. In 1896 he published a book of verse, which became a source of satire due to Neild's liberal usage of archaic language. His dogged determination and financial problems led to the downfall of the George Reid's government in 1899, when it was revealed that Reid had been persuaded to advance an expenses payment to Neild, for a report into old-age pensions, without previous parliamentary consent. In 1896 Neild was one of the founders of a volunteer military corps called St. George's English Rifles, serving as its commanding officer from its inception until 1905. His dual roles of military officer and politician led to disputes with those in the higher chain of command. Neild was a frequent subject of satire by writers, cartoonists and his political opponents.
Biography
Early life
John Cash Neild was born on 4 January 1846 in Bristol, England, the second son of John Cash Neild and Maria. His father was a surgeon and his mother was the daughter of a banker.In 1853 the family emigrated to New Zealand. They settled in the Taranaki region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. During the early stage of the Maori War at Taranaki, Dr. Neild was in charge of medical services to the troops at headquarters and the military hospital. Dr. Neild and his family left New Zealand for Australia to escape the violence, travelling to Sydney aboard the steamer Lord Worsley in July 1860.
John Neild was educated privately, by a tutor and attending private schools.
Business and local government
Neild was first employed at Montefiore, Joseph & Co., an importing firm. In October 1865 Neild commenced business as a broker and commission agent, located in the Lyons Buildings in George Street, Sydney. He was the sole agent in the Australian colonies for J. S. Fry and Sons of Bristol and London, manufacturers of chocolates and cocoas.As a young man Neild was active in the Free Church of England. The FCE had separated from the established Church of England in the mid-1840s by evangelical low church clergy and congregations, in response to what were perceived as attempts to re-introduce traditional Catholic practices into Anglican liturgy and theology. In November 1866 Neild successfully applied to the Municipality of Cook at Camperdown, an inner western suburb of Sydney, for the use of a room in the council chambers for the purpose of holding divine worship by the FCE. In May 1867 he delivered a lecture at the Free Church of England premises in Woolloomooloo "on the subject of the Taranaki Volunteers, and the New Zealand War". The event was chaired by Captain R. Peel Raymond of the Sydney Volunteer Rifles.
On 29 October 1868 Neild married Clara Agnew, the eldest daughter of Rev. Philip Agnew, founder of the Free Church of England in New South Wales, and his wife Matilda. The marriage took place at the residence of the bride's father in Paddington.
In October 1869 Neild was listed as a member of the Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment in New South Wales. By April 1870, working from his business premises in the Lyons Buildings, Neild became an agent for the Queen Insurance Company of England. He was also recorded as carrying on business as an actuary and accountant. During the 1870s Neild was the music and drama critic for the Catholic newspaper, the Evening Post.
John and Clara Neild initially lived at a residence named 'Caylus', in Ocean Street, Woollahra. The couple had one child, a boy named Philip, born in April 1872. Their son died on 19 June 1876 at their residence, "after a few hours' illness, of croup".
In September 1875 Neild was one of a group of "influential residents of Woollahra" who signed a requisition calling for the establishment of a volunteer fire brigade in the Borough of Woollahra. In January 1876 Neild was nominated to stand as an alderman in Piper Ward of the Borough of Woollahra. He was elected to the municipal council in 1876. In January 1878 Alderman Neild was appointed to act as the Council returning officer for elections to be held in the following month.
Clara Neild died on 16 September 1879 at her residence, 'Greycairn' in Edgcliff Road, Woollahra, "after a long illness".
Neild remarried on 19 February 1880 at St. Paul's Anglican Church in Redfern, to Georgine Uhr, the daughter of the late George Uhr, a former Sheriff of New South Wales. The couple had two children who survived to adulthood, a daughter born in May 1882 and a son born in December 1884.
Colonial politics
At the colonial election of December 1882 Neild stood as an independent candidate for the electorate of Paddington in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly. However, he failed a gain a seat in the two-member electorate, finishing in third place. Neild stood for a seat in the Paddington electorate again in the New South Wales general election of November 1885, this time a three-member electorate. On this occasion he was successful, finishing on top of the poll and elected to serve in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly alongside William J. Trickett and Robert Butcher, who had been the members for Paddington in the previous parliament. Neild made his first speech in the Legislative Assembly on 20 November 1885, delivering "a general condemnation" of the protectionist Dibbs government.For his first few years in parliament Neild was a member of the opposition, supporting free trade for the colony. In June 1886 he delivered a speech, during a debate in the Legislative Assembly on the Customs Duties Bill, that extended for nearly nine hours. On 18 June 1886 the leader of the opposition in the New South Wales parliament, Sir John Robertson, retired from public life on medical advice, in the process resigning from his seat for the Mudgee electorate. At a meeting of opposition members Sir Henry Parkes was unanimously chosen to replace him as leader. During the week preceding Robertson's resignation the parliament had been debating the Customs Duties Bill, after the Premier Patrick Jennings had moved for the second reading of the legislation proposing the introduction of ad valorem duties. Soon after being elected as leader of the free trade opposition, Parkes left Sydney to fulfill an existing commitment to visit the Manning River district. The parliamentary agenda had set aside 24 hours, beginning on the afternoon of Wednesday 23 June, for debate of the Customs Duties Bill, after which other parliamentary business was to take precedence. The opposition suspected Jennings' government were planning a division during this period to take advantage of Parkes' absence.
It had been an open secret that the opposition was planning to make a prolonged speech to prevent a vote on the bill when Neild rose to begin his speech soon after nine o'clock in the evening of 23 June. He continued throughout the night until ten minutes to seven the following morning. His speech was confined to the question of custom duties and was delivered "from an ultra free-trade point of view". For the duration of his speech Neild was called to order by the Speaker on only two occasions, "once for irrelevancy, and once for repeating himself". During his address Neild was "loudly cheered and encouraged by his colleagues on the Opposition side... and received an ovation from them at the conclusion". When the New South Wales Hansard for the week was published, Neild's speech took up 29 of the 165 pages.
Neild's nine-hour parliamentary speech proved to be one of the defining events of his life. In the following weeks journalists working for The Bulletin magazine and the Catholic newspaper The Freeman's Journal dubbed him 'Jawbone' Neild, a nickname he was known by for the remainder of his life. The Bulletin cartoonists Phil May and Livingston Hopkins added a visual element to the label by depicting Neild brandishing the jawbone of an ass, an image referencing the Biblical text describing the killing of a thousand Philistines by Samson, using a donkey's jawbone as a weapon.
In January 1887 Henry Parkes became Premier of New South Wales following the resignation of the protectionist Patrick Jennings, brought about by political and personal differences with the Colonial Secretary George Dibbs. Parkes selected a ministry prior to contesting a general election in February, but did not offer Neild a role. At a meeting with Neild, Parkes "made certain explanations to him and gave him certain assurances"; for his part Neild claimed that "the explanations were unnecessary he in no way sought office". Although generally supporting the Parkes administration Neild chose to sit on the cross-benches in parliament. In February 1887 Neild was described in the following terms: "Celebrated for the length of his oratory and of his moustache, although his vanity is more extensive than either; a man of great expectations, and probably the greatest disappointment of his life was that he was not asked by Sir Henry Parkes to take office". In April 1887 he was recorded as "a freetrader, and gives an independent support to the present Ministry".
In 1887 Neild was appointed as executive commissioner for New South Wales at the Adelaide Jubilee International Exhibition, which opened in June that year. The New South Wales display featured a "triumphal arch" and a "magnificent array" of minerals and timbers, agricultural products and "diversified manufactures", displaying "the magnitude and variety" of the colony's economic resources. In the lead-up to the opening, Neild's seat in the Legislative Assembly was challenged on the ground that he held an office of profit under the Crown as commissioner for the exhibition. The question was referred to the Committee of Elections and Qualifications which found no impropriety, with all expenditure of public funds being confined to exhibition-related expenses.
In April 1888 a simmering animosity between Neild and Sir Henry Parkes, the New South Wales premier, came to the fore. Neild had made a speech in parliament, sharply criticising the government's financial management, and Parkes reacted by relating an anecdote about a pig-farmer: "One day hearing a considerable amount of squalling, and seeking to discover the cause for the noise, he found one little pig crying because he had not a teat to suck". During a subsequent debate on the Supply Bill Neild responded to Parkes comments, pointing out that "those who had got the teats were on the Government benches". He claimed the premier "had reversed nature, because while the litter sucked the sow, Sir Henry Parkes sucked his litter".
Neild had remained an alderman of the Woollahra Municipal Council after being elected as a member of the Legislative Assembly. In June 1888, upon the resignation of William Trickett, Neild was unanimously elected to the office of mayor of Woollahra.
In the New South Wales general election of February 1889 Neild was defeated for a seat to represent the four-member Paddington electorate, finishing seventh from a field of nine candidates. In the lead-up to the election Neild had suffered from a fractured leg.
Neild remained as mayor of Woollahra until February 1890 when Thomas Magney was elected in his place. Neild did not attend any subsequent council meetings and in June 1890 he sent a letter tendering his resignation as alderman.
Neild had temporarily moved from Sydney to Gosford after February 1890, where he was working as an auctioneer. In June 1890 a sequestration petition was granted declaring Neild bankrupt. His liabilities were estimated to be approximately ten thousand pounds, against which there were assets of about six thousand pounds. Neild's financial problems were related to his engagement in "a large amount of litigation" over a ten-year period with various persons and the Lion Fire Insurance Company, including at least one appeal to the Privy Council in Britain.
Neild had joined the Loyal Orange Institution of New South Wales in 1883, an affiliated lodge of the Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland. In February 1891 he was elected as the Right Worshipful Grand Master of the institution.
Neild was re-elected as a member of the four-member Paddington electorate in the New South Wales election of June 1891. Soon after his return to parliament Neild introduced the Children's Protection Bill , an effort to prevent 'baby farming' by regulating those who took children into their care for payment. His bill passed the Legislative Assembly in August 1891 and the Legislative Council in March 1892.
Neild also introduced a bill for divorce reform, extending the grounds for dissolution of marriage to include desertion, habitual drunkenness, assault or imprisonment for at least seven years. Efforts to introduce these measures in New South Wales had begun in 1886 when Sir Alfred Stephen, then a member of the Legislative Council, championed the Divorce Extension Act, which passed both houses of parliament but was refused royal assent. Stephen continued to re-introduce the bill in successive sessions, encountering determined opposition until it lapsed in 1890. Stephen resigned from the Legislative Council in October 1890. In August 1891 Neild gave notice of his intention to introduce a bill for the amendment and extension of divorce laws. Neild's Divorce Act Extension and Amendment Bill was passed in the Legislative Assembly in February 1892. The legislation was passed by the Legislative Council in March and became law after its assent by the Governor in August 1892.