page_title: Alexander Peacock
section_title: Entry in Parliament
hierarchical_section_title: Alexander Peacock / Entry in Parliament
caption_attribution_description: English: Alexander Peacock From the 1898 Australasian Federal Convention Album.
context_page_description: Sir Alexander James Peacock KCMG was an Australian politician who served as the 20th Premier of Victoria.
  Peacock was born of Scottish descent at Creswick, the first Victorian Premier born after the gold rush of the 1850s and the attainment of self-government in Victoria. He was distantly related to the family of the politician Andrew Peacock. Educated at a local school, Peacock passed the Victorian civil service examination at 13 years of age, becoming briefly a school teacher and a clerk in Melbourne. Returning to Creswick, he worked as a mine manager, establishing his own business and buying several gold mines. He was prominent in the Australian Natives' Association and the movement for Australian federation in the 1880s and '90s.
context_section_description: In 1889 Peacock was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly for the seat of Clunes and Allendale, near Ballarat, which he held for 43 years. Although he was a moderate liberal, he was a minister without portfolio in the conservative government of James Munro (1890–1892), and Minister for Public Instruction in the Shiels government (1892–1893) and Postmaster-General 15 November 1892 to 23 January 1893. He was Chief Secretary in both the governments of Sir George Turner from 1894 to 1899 and 1900 to 1901, being also Minister for Public Instruction in the first and Minister for Labour in the second.
  In 1897 Peacock was elected as one of the Victorian delegates to the Constitutional Convention which wrote the Australian Constitution.
caption: Peacock in 1898.
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