Edward Wienholt

Edward's birth and baptism are recorded in a red leather pocket book, along with the births of his nine siblings. The record, probably kept by his mother, Sarah, states that he was born on 28 March 1833 at Laugharne and that he was baptised there on 7 May of the same year.

The information below is from a number of sources, including this: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wienholt-arnold-4849

Edward, - Eton-educated and an Anglican, arrived in Queensland in 1853. With William Kent he acquired Fassifern, Jondaryan and Goomburra stations in the 1870s in the south-east and several large runs in the interior. His 'dash and self-reliance … tempered by a native shrewdness which caused him seldom to make a mistake' was combined with an advantageous marriage on 14 December 1874 to Ellen (1856-1898), daughter of Daniel Williams, railway contractor and entrepreneur. They had three sons and three daughters, including Arnold (1877-1940).

Wienholt and his partners rapidly built up one of Australia's largest and initially most profitable pastoral empires. In 1888 they held 289,966 acres (117,346 ha) of freehold land in the Moreton and Darling Downs districts; next year the Wienholt Pastoral Estates Co. was formed. Believing that 'it was necessary for those who had a stake in the country to take part in its Government [to] protect themselves from great and unnecessary liabilities', Wienholt was M.L.A. for Western Downs in 1870-73 and Darling Downs in 1873-75. A strong adherent of Sir Arthur Palmer, he favoured drastic retrenchment, complete free trade in imports and lands, restricted education for the masses and the continuation of the threatened pastoral hegemony. In 1875 the Privy Council in Regina v. Edward Wienholt reversed a Supreme Court decision and found for him in a ruling that gave freehold titles to all selectors, genuine or otherwise, whose rents had previously been collected by the Crown—this was a valuable victory. In May 1890 Brisbane waterside workers refused to load non-union-shorn wool from Jondaryan. This incident, an important event in the struggle between the new mass unions and the pastoralists, hastened the end of the old traditional Queensland pastoral ascendancy.

Wienholt retired to Rocklands, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, England, in 1880. He died in Melbourne on 14 January 1904 on one of his frequent trips to Australia. He was regarded as 'a fine specimen of colonial Toryism', who never concealed his fundamental views. His social and political positions were eventually eroded, but his convictions, courteous deportment and correct if frigid public manners, together with his territorial acquisitions, place him above his more pedestrian fellows. A Petty Sessions district at Murgon and a parish near Dalby are named after him. His estate was valued for probate at £9144 in New South Wales and at £57,000 in Queensland.

Probate was granted in England on 27 September to Arnold Wienholt and Edward Ormond Waters Hill, the deceased's effects in England being valued at £30,908 14s 1d.