Legislative Assembly
Thomas Joseph Byrnes took which position from Apr 1896 to Sep 1898?
Thomas Joseph Byrnes Thomas Joseph Byrnes ( 11 November 1860 – 27 September 1898 ) was Premier of Queensland from April 1898 until his death in October of the same year , having previously served in several ministerial positions in his parliamentary career . He was the first Roman Catholic Premier of Queensland and the first to die in office . Early life . Byrnes was born in Spring Hill , Queensland , to Irish immigrants Patrick Byrnes and his wife Anna , née Tighe . Byrnes was educated at Bowen State School , then , winning a scholarship where he topped the state , he studied at Brisbane Grammar School and then studied arts and law at the University of Melbourne , graduating with honours in both . During his time at the University of Melbourne he was Prelector of the Dialectic Society of Trinity College ( University of Melbourne ) , winning the Societys inaugural Wigram Allen Prize in 1883 , only months after it had been established by Sir George Wigram Allen . In 1882-83 Byrnes taught at Xavier College . Career . Byrnes was admitted as a barrister in Victoria on 8 July 1884 and returned for a Queensland admission on 5 August ; he then began a successful career as a barrister . Byrnes talent brought him to the attention of fellow barrister Sir Samuel Griffith , then Premier of Queensland , who had him appointed Solicitor-General with a seat in the Legislative Council . Byrnes stood down from the Legislative Council to successfully stand for Cairns in the Legislative Assembly in 1893 . He represented Cairns until 1896 , after which he represented Warwick in the Legislative Assembly from 1896 to his death in 1898 . Byrnes continued his private law practice and participated in two major Supreme Court of Queensland cases . In the Queensland Investment Co . v . Grimley case , Byrnes successful conduct of the defence was praised widely . In the John Robb arbitration case of 1892 , praise for Byrnes skill was accompanied by public objection to the high fees paid to Samuel Griffith as leading counsel and to Byrnes as one of his assistants . In 1895 and 1897 , Byrnes represented Queensland at meetings of the Federal Council of Australasia . Sir Thomas McIlwraith appointed him as Attorney-General of Queensland in the Continuous Ministry , and when Hugh Nelson stepped down as Premier ; Byrnes , the youngest member of the Ministry by a large margin , became Premier . Late life . Byrnes ability had led many to expect great things of him , but he contracted measles then pneumonia and died on 27 September 1898 . Byrnes was accorded a state funeral which proceeded from St Stephens Cathedral to the Toowong Cemetery . Never married , he was survived by several brothers and sisters . Legacy . Byrnes is commemorated by two statues , one in Centenary Place in Brisbane and the heritage-listed T J Byrnes Monument in Warwick , both funded by public subscriptions . The commissioning of the Brisbane statue encountered a series of setbacks . The sculptor Achille Simonetti was approached by the committee to create the statue . However , Simonetti had never seen Byrnes during his life and produced a plaster cast from photographs for the committees approval before commencing the statue . The committee did not think the cast was sufficiently like Byrnes and there were a number of iterations before they were satisfied . Then there was an argument of whether Byrnes should be depicted in a university gown or in an ordinary frock coat , deciding on a frock coat in order to depict Byrnes as the premier rather than as a lawyer . Then as Simonetti was tendering to provide a 9-foot-tall bronze statue for £1,800 , a local sculptor James Laurence Watts offered to provide the statue for only £1,000 , dividing the committee . However , after Byrnes sisters indicated their strong preference for Simonettis work and Simonetti offered a revised tender of £1400 , the committee went ahead and commissioned the statue from Simonetti . Early in 1900 , the argument about the clothing erupted once more when Simonetti expressed an artistic preference for robes rather than a frock coat , and the committee reversed its decision in favour of robes . During this argument , Simonetti took ill and died . It was then announced in the newspaper that it had been Simonettis wish that his former pupil , James White , should complete his unfinished commissions . The committee negotiated with White , but finally gave the commission to sculptor Bertram Mackennal . The township of Byrnestown in Queensland is named after him , as is its main street Byrnes Parade and its railway station . St Thomass Catholic Church in Camp Hill , Brisbane ( then known as East Coorparoo ) built in 1923 is another memorial to Byrnes . He had owned the land on which the church was built , but it had passed to his sister Matilda Margaret Maloney after his death . In 1916 she agreed to sell the land to the Catholic Church and then , on her death in 1922 , bequeathed £300 towards the cost of erecting a church in memory of her brother . References . - Byrnes , Thomas Joseph — Brisbane City Council Grave Location Search