Abram Moriarty

Abram Orpen Moriarty (1830 – 22 May 1918) was an Irish-born Australian politician. Early life Moriarty was born in County Cork to Merion Marshall Moriarty and Anne Orpen. The family migrated to Sydney in 1843 and he became a clerk in the Department of Lands and then a police magistrate at Armidale. On 24 April 1856 he married Harriett Christiana Powell, with whom he had thirteen children. He had been employed in the civil service since he was 16, rising to chief clerk in the Department of Lands in 1853, appointed commissioner of crown lands and a police magistrate in Armidale in 1857. Political career In February 1858 he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for New England and Macleay, defeating the sitting member Thomas Rusden. Rusden lodged multiple petitions against the election, making various allegations including electoral fraud, corruption and that Moriarty was ineligible to be elected as he was a police magistrate at the time of his election. Each of these petitions were rejected by the house as not complying with the requirements of the Electoral Act. Moriarty resigned on 13 October 1858, denying the petitions played any part in his reasons, instead citing the financial difficulty of serving a far distant electorate.