Premier Sir Richard "Dicky" Dry died in office 150 years ago this year and of all the premiers of the 19th century, he is the only one who is still remembered.
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He was a legend and his popularity was extraordinary.
No Tasmanian political figure will ever again be so idolised with portraits of him sold on streets in Hobart.
Once when returning home on the stagecoach he found almost the entire city waiting on the Sandhill. They unhitched the stagecoach horses, hitched themselves up in the horses' place and dragged the coach around the streets cheering. Banners and flags waved from windows. Ships in the harbour fired guns and rockets.
Sir Richard was born in Charles Street in 1815 and grew up at Elphin, the family property now a suburb.
Thanks to his father, he began with money and status but unfortunately, his father also introduced him to horse racing, and by the time he was an adult, he was hopelessly addicted to gambling. Remarkably, his gambling and hijinks only increased his popularity.
Everyone loved him. In 1844 the Governor made him a Member of the Legislative Council and gave him a free apartment in the Government Cottage in City Park.
Dicky and his young officer mates, including the Governor's son, promptly embarrassed the government by cavorting around town late at night in wheelbarrows. Is this how an MLC should behave, people asked?
Despite his faults, we know Dicky Dry was extraordinarily generous, kind, compassionate and courteous. He was such great company that six successive Governors trooped to his door to stay at the vast 30,000 acre Quamby estate he'd inherited at Hagley.
When he died in office as premier in 1869, his funeral was something never seen again.
After a huge service in Hobart, with his long-time ally acting Premier Tom Chapman declaring a public holiday so people could attend, a beautiful horse-drawn hearse carried his coffin slowly northward.
Thousands of people and carriages marched mournfully with him out of Hobart. At each town along the way people came out to meet the hearse and escort him through.
Nearly all Launceston was waiting to receive him for a second funeral service at Trinity, and afterwards an immense column of mourners, horsemen and carriages wound its way up the Sandhill and out onto the Westbury Road.
The crowd swelled again as he came into Hagley and was taken to St Mary's for a third funeral service.
There he was laid to rest, and his grave is now under the church he built.