William Dumaresq


William John Dumaresq was an English-born Australian politician.

Life and career

Dumaresq was the son of John Dumaresq, a Shropshire colonel, and Anne Jones. He attended the Royal Military College, Great Marlow, and became a civil engineer. He served in the Royal Staff Corps in the Peninsular War and in Canada, where he worked on the Ottawa canal. He was deputy surveyor-general in New South Wales but retired in 1829. On 15 October 1830 he married Christiana Susan Macleay, daughter of Alexander Macleay; they had two children. Although he lived mainly at Rose Bay from the 1840s, he was associated with the Scone district.
Prior to the establishment of responsible government, Dumaresq was elected to the partially elected New South Wales Legislative Council at the first elections held in the colony in 1843. He represented the electorate of Counties of Hunter, Brisbane and Bligh. He was defeated for the seat at the 1848 New South Wales colonial election by Donald McIntyre, but was re-elected in 1851 as the member for Counties of Phillip, Brisbane and Bligh.
He was appointed to the reconstituted Council in 1856, but resigned without taking his seat.
After his wife's death in 1866, Dumaresq moved to Queensland, and he died at Cleveland in 1868.