Edward Smart (politician)

Smart was born at Ipswich, Queensland, to parents Thomas Smart and his wife Elizabeth (née Ball).[1] He attended Toowoomba State School and became an apprentice plumber. He acquired his own plumbing business in 1885 and eventually became a director of the Sugarloaf Colliery Company.[1]

On 11 April 1895 he married Emma Jessie Hunt (died 1939)[2] and together had three sons and two daughters. He died in November 1948[1] and was buried in the Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery.[3]

Smart, who was a member of the Independent Order of Rechabites, was an Alderman on the Toowoomba City Council from 1894 until 1900.[1] When one of the sitting members for the Queensland state seat of Drayton & Toowoomba, John Fogarty died in 1904, Smart, representing the Labour Party, won the resulting by-election.[1] He held the seat for three years, declining to stand at the 1907 state election.[4]