John Street (Australian politician)

John Rendell Street was born in Woodlands, New South Wales, to businessman John Wood Street and Marie (née Rendell) Street.[2] His father descended from the Englishman, Baron Sir Thomas Street. John Wood Street had arrived from England as a free settler in 1822. He married Marie Rendell, with Reverend Samuel Marsden officiating, and settled in Woodlands, New South Wales.[3]

Street was a partner in the law firm Allen, Street & Norton. In 1886, he founded the Perpetual Trustee Company as managing director with Sir Edmund Barton and Sir James Fairfax as fellow trustees. He was a director of Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Company (now Commonwealth Bank), and a vice president of Sydney Hospital.[4] In 1887, he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as a Free Trade member for East Sydney, a position he held until his death at Elizabeth Bay in 1891.[5] He is recognised as the founder of Australia's Street dynasty for being the first member of his family to go about public service in Australia.

On 4 December 1860, he married Susanna Caroline Lawson, daughter of Australian politician and explorer Commandant William Lawson, who made the first settler crossing across the Blue Mountains with Gregory Blaxland and William Wentworth on the 1813 crossing of the Blue Mountains expedition. Street's brother-in-law via his sister Sarah Maria (née Street) was the Australian politician and banker Thomas Whistler Smith, deputy chairman of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney (now NAB). His third son Ernest Henry Street married Emma Margaret Browne (daughter of Australian author Thomas Alexander Browne) on 1 June 1892.[6]

John and Susanna had seven children, the eldest son being Sir Philip Street, who would go on to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales, as would John's grandson Sir Kenneth Street and great-grandson Sir Laurence Street.[5] The Street family is the only dynasty in Australian history to hold a vice-regal office for three consecutive generations. The patriarch of family's juridical tradition is Baron Sir Thomas Street, a 17th century English Chief Justice who served on the last King's Bench before the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and who had his children by Lady Penelope Berkeley.[7]

• Street family