Henry Strangways

{{Short description|Australian politician (1832–1920)}}

{{About||the pirate|Henry Strangways (pirate)|people with a similar name|Henry Fox-Strangways (disambiguation)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2016}}

{{Use Australian English|date=November 2016}}

{{Infobox officeholder

|honorific-prefix = The Honourable

|name = Henry Strangways

|image = Henry Strangways.jpg

|order = 12th Premier of South Australia

|term_start = 3 November 1868

|term_end = 30 May 1870

|monarch = Victoria

|governor = Sir James Fergusson

|predecessor = Henry Ayers

|successor = John Hart

|birth_name=Henry Bull Templer Strangways

|birth_date = {{birth date|1832|11|14|df=y}}

|birth_place = Shapwick, England, United Kingdom

|death_date = {{death date and age|1920|02|10|1832|11|14|df=y}}

|death_place = Somerset, England, United Kingdom

}}

Henry Bull Templer Strangways{{efn|His middle name is misspelt as "Templar" by the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Templer was his mother's maiden name and is spelt correctly on his grave.}} (14 November 1832 – 10 February 1920) was an Australian politician and Premier of South Australia.

Strangways was the eldest son of Henry Bull Strangways Jr. of Shapwick, Somerset, England, and his first wife, Sophia Jane Templer.{{cite book |title=The Record of Old Westminsters: A Biographical List of All Those who are Known to Have Been Educated at Westminster School from the Earliest Times to 1927 |date=1928 |publisher=Chiswick Press |page=891 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nmVYAAAAMAAJ&dq=Henry+Bull+Strangways&pg=PA891 |access-date=7 September 2024 |language=en}} His family were landed gentry in Somerset but descended from Strangways, Lancashire (now Strangeways, Manchester).

As a boy, he visited South Australia, where his uncle Thomas Bewes Strangways was a pioneer.

Returning to England he entered the Middle Temple in November 1851 and was called to the bar in June 1856. He went to Adelaide early in the following year, was elected to the South Australian House of Assembly for Encounter Bay in January 1858, and became Attorney-General of South Australia in the First Reynolds Ministry from May 1860 to May 1861. The ministry was then reconstructed and Strangways became Commissioner of Crown Lands and Immigration until October 1861. He held the same position in the Waterhouse ministry from October 1861 to July 1863, in the Dutton ministry from March to September 1865, and in the third Ayers ministry from September to October 1865. Strangways represented West Torrens from 17 November 1862 to 28 July 1871.{{cite SA-parl |pid=3983 |name=Henry Bull Templar Strangways |former=yes |access-date=19 August 2022}}

On 3 November 1868 he became Premier and Attorney-General in a ministry that was reconstructed after an election on 12 May 1870, but was defeated 18 days later. In February 1871 he travelled to England on private business; while there he resigned his seat in the South Australian Parliament and settled instead at Shapwick Manor on the Strangways family's estate in Somerset, where he lived the life of a country gentleman until his death on 10 February 1920.

He retained an interest in South Australia all his life, but does not appear to have revisited it. In January 1861{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article828965 |title=Family Notices. |newspaper=The South Australian Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1858 - 1889) |location=Adelaide, SA |date=11 January 1861 |access-date=30 October 2015 |page=2 |via=Trove}} he married Maria Cordelia Wigley, a sister of William Rodolph Wigley (c. 1826–1890).