Name John Street | ||
John Rendell Street, MLC (19 October 1832 – 23 March 1891) was an Australian politician and businessman. He served as the successor of Sir Edmund Barton, 1st Prime Minister of Australia, in his New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of East Sydney, serving from 1887 to 1891. A descendant of Sir Thomas Street, he was the first member of the Street family to make an entry into Australian politics. His son Sir Philip Whistler Street, KCMG would go on to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and Lieutenant Governor of New South Wales, as would his grandson Sir Kenneth Whistler Street, KCMG, KStJ and his great-grandson Sir Laurence Street, AC, KCMG, KStJ, QC.
He was born at Woodlands near Bathurst to pastoralist John Street and Maria Rendell. In 1849 he became a businessman in Sydney, first with Smith, Crawford & Co., and then as a partner in Allen, Street & Norton. On 4 December 1860 he married Susanna Caroline Lawson, granddaughter of famed explorer William Lawson, who discovered the first crossing across the Blue Mountains alongside Gregory Blaxland and William Wentworth on the 1813 crossing of the Blue Mountains expedition. John had seven children with Maria; a second marriage, on 23 April 1883 to Anna Maria Smith, produced no children. In 1885 he became managing director of the Perpetual Trustee Company. In 1887 he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as a Free Trade member for East Sydney, a position he held until his death at Elizabeth Bay in 1891.