The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Fysh, Hon. Philip Oakley
Fysh, Hon. Philip Oakley, M.L.C., was born at Highbury, London, in 1835. In 1859 he emigrated to Tasmania. After a successful commercial career he went into politics and became Premier of Tasmania, was member for Hobart in the Legislative Council from 1866 to 1869, and for Buckingham from Nov. 1870 to July 1873, when he left the Upper House for the House of Assembly, in which he represented East Hobart from August 1873 to Nov. 1878. In March 1884 he was re-elected to the Legislative Council for Buckingham, for which constituency he still sits. Mr. Fysh was in the Kennerley Government from August 1873 to March 1875 as Treasurer, and from that date till July 1876 as a minister without portfolio. He became the recognised leader of the Opposition in July 1877, and the next month formed an Administration, in which he took the position of Premier without office. In March 1879 Mr. Giblin became Premier, Mr. Fysh remaining a member of the Ministry without portfolio till its retirement in the following December. In March 1887 Mr. Fysh, who is President of the Central Board of Health, and was major commanding the Tasmanian Volunteer Rifle Regiment from 1880 to 1884, formed his second Government, of which he is still Premier and Chief Secretary. He was one of the delegates from Tasmania to the Sydney Federation Convention in 1891.
Fysh, Hon. Philip Oakley, M.L.C. (p. 177). In August 1892 Mr. Fysh resigned the office of Premier and Chief Secretary of Tasmania, owing to the defeat of the Government in the House of Assembly on their financial proposals.