Richard Davies Ireland

Richard Davies Ireland
Solicitor-General of Victoria
In office
27 October 1858 – 10 March 1858
Personal details
Born27 October 1815
Galway, Ireland
Died11 January 1877
South Yarra, Australia

Richard Davies Ireland QC (27 October 1815 – 11 January 1877) was an Australian politician, a member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly and Attorney-General.[1][2]

Ireland was born in Galway, educated at Trinity College Dublin (B.A., 1837)[2] and was called to the Irish bar in 1838.[3]

Ireland emigrated to Victoria in 1852, and was called to the local bar in the following year.[3] His brilliant and gratuitous defence of the Ballarat rioters brought him enormous popularity, and he was elected to represent Castlemaine Boroughs in the Assembly in 1857, and was appointed Solicitor-General in March 1858 in the John O'Shanassy Ministry,[4] retiring with his colleagues in October 1859, when he was returned for Maryborough.[3] He was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1863.

Ireland joined the Richard Heales Administration as Attorney-General in November 1860, but resigned in July 1861, four months before the fall of the Ministry. When the O'Shanassy Ministry, which succeeded, came in November, Ireland again became Attorney-General, retiring with his colleagues in June 1863, he did not again hold office.[3] Ireland represented Villiers and Heytesbury from August 1861 until resigning in April 1864, he then represented Kilmore from February 1866 to December 1867.[1]

Ireland died in South Yarra, Melbourne on 11 January 1877; his wife Sophia Mary, née Carr predeceased him. Sophia's sister, Selina, was married to Henry Samuel Chapman. Ireland's daughter Harriet married John F. M. Fraser (son of the Hon. Thomas Fraser), who was appointed Q.C. in New Zealand in 1910.[5]

  1. ^ a b "Richard Davies Ireland". Re-Member: a database of all Victorian MPs since 1851. Parliament of Victoria. Archived from the original on 23 April 2023. Retrieved 2 January 2014.
  2. ^ a b Woods, Janice Burns. "Ireland, Richard Davies (1815–1877)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943. Retrieved 2 January 2014.
  3. ^ a b c d Mennell, Philip (1892). "Ireland, Hon. Richard Davies" . The Dictionary of Australasian Biography. London: Hutchinson & Co – via Wikisource.
  4. ^ "Appointment Solicitor General Richard Ireland MLA". Victoria Government Gazette. Victorian Government Printer. 10 March 1858. p. 1858:477.
  5. ^ Cyclopedia Company Limited (1905). "Barristers and Solicitors". The Cyclopedia of New Zealand : Otago & Southland Provincial Districts. Christchurch: The Cyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 13 April 2021.