Henry Parkes was an Australian politician and was the longest non-consecutive Premier of the Colony of NSW. Unfortunately, falling wheat prices forced his family to leave the land and seek employment in Birmingham. In 1836 Parkes married Clarinda Varney and they applied for assisted passage to Australia, the death of two of their infant children and a failed business venture influencing their decision. He has been referred to as the father of federation due to this early promotion for the federation and the six colonies of Australia. He was a dominant political figure in Australia during the second half of the 19th century and was often called the father of the Australian federation. Sir Henry Parkes education work resulted in the public school’s act of 1866. This introduced compulsory free education and took away connections between church and the public schools.

Henry Parkes lived in a family of tenant farmers, at the Canley Moat House near Stoneleigh in Warwickshire, England. It was the year of Waterloo, and Britain’s economy had been ruined by decades of war with France under Napoleon. Like thousands of poor farmers, Henry’s father Thomas ended up in the debtors’ prison. Henry received little formal education because - by age ten - he’d joined the army of child labour, and was toiling to support his family.

He established public recreation areas such as Centennial Park and took a keen interest in the precursor to Taronga Park Zoo at Moore Park. He developed a love for the Australian bush and tried to regulate timber cutting by setting up the Forestry Branch in the Department of Lands in 1871.

He started a newspaper, The Empire and helped set up the Australian League to educate people about the rights and duties of citizens in a democracy. He fought for jobs and fair wages by opposing the free labour of transported convicts and cheap ‘slave’ labour from other countries, mainly the Pacific Islands and China. He argued for universal suffrage, i.e. every citizen to be entitled to vote.