He was the second son of Edward Wise, a judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, and Maria Bate (née Smith).

After his father's death in 1865, his mother took the family to Leeds, England to put her sons through grammar school, where their "homemade clothes exposed us to ridicule and bullying".

Wise won a £90-a-year scholarship to The Queen's College, Oxford, where he had a distinguished career, being Cobden Prizeman in 1878 and gaining a first-class in the honour school of law in 1880.

[1][4] Later in life in November 1898, while the member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for Ashfield, he was appointed a Queen's Counsel.

[5] In February 1887, Wise was elected to the Legislative Assembly for the working class district of South Sydney,[6] advocating direct taxation, payment of members, an eight-hour day and free trade.

[7][10] His failure to choose sides between Reid and Parkes during a no-confidence debate left him isolated and he was defeated for re-election in 1895.

But as a candidate for the Federal House of Representatives rural seat of Canobolas, though really a convinced freetrader, he was labelled a protectionist on account of his association with Lyne and Barton, and he was seen as a "city" barrister.

Most of his time was spent in England and on 10 March 1908 his seat in the Legislative Council was declared vacant due to his absence for two sessions.

[4] He was the author of Facts and Fallacies of Modern Protection (1879); Industrial Freedom A Study in Politics (1892), a more complete statement of the freetrade case; The Commonwealth of Australia (1909), a popular book on conditions in Australia at that time; and The Making of the Australian Commonwealth (1913), which, though sometimes one-sided and generally too much confined to events in New South Wales, is an interesting and valuable document.

"A most agreeable companion" (7th Earl of Beauchamp, NSW Governor), with a "clear musical voice" (the Age), and "attractive manner" (John Quick), but with "inveterate personal and political enemies" (W.B.