Charles Lee

Who was Charles Lee?

Charles Alfred Lee JP was an Australian shopkeeper and conservative parliamentarian who served in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for 35 years. Serving from 1884 for Tenterfield, he entered the Free Trade Party cabinet of George Reid in 1898 as Minister for Justice and briefly as Secretary for Public Works in 1899 until he returned to opposition in late 1899. Following Federation and the change of focus of the old party system in 1901, Lee was elected as the compromise leader of the new Liberal Reform Party and consequently the first official Leader of the Opposition. After leading the party to electoral defeat in 1901, he resigned owing to ill health in 1902. When the Liberal Reformers won office under Sir Joseph Carruthers in 1904, he was made Secretary for Public Works. He served with distinction, overseeing the expansion of rural infrastructure, under Carruthers and his successor Charles Wade, until the government lost office to the Labor Party in 1910. He thereafter served in the backbenches until his retirement to Tenterfield in 1920, where he died six years later.