E. T. Hooley

Hooley was born at sea in 1842, on board Bolivar,[1] which was en route from London to Launceston, Van Diemen's Land.

His father, Daniel Hooley, was a farmer who had emigrated to Van Diemen's Land to take up an offer of work at a sheep and cattle station there.

Edward Hooley was educated there, becoming a farmer and sheep and cattle dealer, before marrying an Irish immigrant named Jane Maze on 23 November or 4 December 1861.

Arriving on board Stag in December, Hooley and the other pioneers found the land to be virtually useless for agricultural and pastoral purposes.

By April the following year, the company had dissolved, and Hooley and others sailed south to the Tientsin Bay settlement (later known as Cossack).

They then made a second expedition, south through the Hamersley Range as far as the Ashburton River, where they found good pastoral land.

When Hooley returned to Perth to announce his discovery, he was widely acclaimed; some settlers even presented him with an engraved gold watch (which is now held by the Western Australian Museum).

Hooley retained the lease for only two years, abandoning it in the face of great hostility from the Aboriginal people of the area, following a conflict known as the Battle of Minderoo.

He became involved in several business ventures, becoming a director of Equitable Life Insurance, the Swan Brewery, and the Lady Shenton Gold Mining Company.

Three months later he won the Western Australian Legislative Assembly seat of Murchison in a by-election occasioned by the resignation of Everard Darlot.