User:Ianblair23/Father of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly

This is a List of Fathers of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly.

The Father of the Legislative Assembly is an informal title that carries no parliamentary responsibilities. It is held by the member who has served longer, continuously, than any other currently-serving member. Where two or more members have equal lengths of continuous service, more than any other currently-serving members, they are known as the joint Fathers of the Legislative Assembly. Joint Fathers are shown in small type in the following list.

The only Father of the Legislative Assembly with broken service but whose latter period of continuous service was sufficiently long to qualify was

The first Legislative Assembly was elected from March to April 1856. Despite the variations in the election dates, all the members elected to the First Parliament were considered to have had equal seniority. It follows that there could not be a "longest-serving member" until only one member from the First Parliament was still in the Assembly. This would of been William Piddington, due to George Lord accepting a position in the Legislative Council, however at the 1877 election he was defeated in the seat of Hawkesbury. As a result, the first Father of the Assembly became John Sutherland who first entered the parliament in 1860.

Since that date the Fathers and joint Fathers of the Legislative Assembly have been: