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]