John Crase

[2] Crase was born in 1837 in St Ives, Cornwall,[3][4] and emigrated to Queensland, arriving in 1859.

[8] Party allegiances at the time were not strong in local politics, and for the most part aldermen were elected as non-partisan representatives.

[9] Nonetheless, he opposed the introduction of party politics into municipal government, believing it to be unnecessary and counterproductive.

In particular, he argued that it was "oppressive and unfair" for ratepayers to bear the complete cost of municipal government, given that non-property owners also benefited from municipal works,[12] and opposed the expenditure of public money on public utilities wherever possible, referring to them as "experimental enterprises", and arguing that council had no reason to be competing with private businesses run by ratepayers.

[10] Nonetheless, he conceded that certain services could only be run effectively by the council (citing the provision of drinking water as an example), and argued that in these cases the public interest would best be served by council developing its own service delivery capacity, rather than relying on "lowest tenderer" contract labour.