The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Stuart, Hon. Sir Alexander
Stuart, Hon. Sir Alexander, M.L.A., sometime Premier of New South Wales, son of Alexander Stuart of Edinburgh, was born in that city in 1825, and educated at the Edinburgh Academy, and subsequently at the University there. He was engaged in mercantile pursuits in Leith, Glasgow and London, and afterwards went to India, whence he came to Sydney in 1851, and entered the service of the Bank of New South Wales as assistant secretary. In 1855 he resigned the latter post, and went into partnership with the late Captain Towns in the firm of Towns & Co. In 1876 he was elected to the Assembly for East Sydney, and was Colonial Treasurer in the Robertson Government from February of that year till March 1877, when the Ministry resigned. In Jan. 1883, on the defeat of the Parkes-Robertson coalition, he accepted the task of forming a cabinet, and was Premier and Colonial Secretary till Oct. 1885. It was during his absence through indisposition in the latter year that his locum tenens, Mr. Dalley, on his own responsibility, made the bold coup of offering to despatch the Soudan contingent. Towards the end of the year Mr. Stuart left for London, with the view of acting as Executive Commissioner for New South Wales at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886. Though greatly enfeebled by ill-health, he discharged his duties with success till his death on June 6th in the latter year. He had just previously been created K.C.M.G. Sir Alexander Stuart's widow died on Sept. 16th, 1889.