Clark's first attempt to win a seat in the
New South Wales Legislative Assembly was at the
October 1885 general election when he was a candidate for the two-member
electorate of St. Leonards. The contest for the electorate was closely watched by the colonial press and the general public, with the premier
George Dibbs being one of the sitting members. Dibbs had only recently become leader of the colonial government upon the resignation of
Alexander Stuart (on the day parliament was dissolved). As well as Clark and Dibbs, the other candidates for the seat of St. Leonards was the veteran parliamentarian and prominent opposition politician,
Henry Parkes, as well as the other sitting member
Isaac Ives (who had won the seat in a by-election three months earlier). Parkes had been one of the members for
Argyle prior to the election, elected in a by-election in late March 1885, but he chose to contest the St. Leonards electorate at the general election as a direct challenge to Dibbs. At the election held on 16 October 1885, Parkes topped the poll with 1,506 votes (33.4 percent) and Ives polled second to retain his seat. Dibbs was defeated with 23 percent of the vote, and Clark finished fourth with 18.2 percent. Clark was urged by supporters to become a candidate at the
1887 general election. However, at that time the fiscal issue of
free trade versus
protectionism dominated the political discourse and Clark was asked by Henry Parkes, parliamentary leader of the emerging
Free Trade Party, to retire from the contest in order that he and his colleague Isaac Ives might be returned unopposed. Clark made a second attempt to win a seat in the Legislative Assembly at the
1889 general election, for which St. Leonards was allocated one extra seat making it a three-member electorate. Of the five candidates, four were identified as free trade candidates (including Clark), and the fifth was a protectionist. Isaac Ives had decided not to re-contest his seat and Parkes chose
Joseph Cullen and
John Fitzgerald Burns (previously the member for
The Hunter) as the other two Free Trade Party candidates, leaving Clark to run as an
independent candidate. Parkes and his two Free Trade Party colleagues were elected, with Clark polling fourth and again failing to be elected. At the
1891 general election Parkes again chose Cullen and Burns as his fellow Free Trade Party candidates. They were opposed by Clark, one other independent free trade supporter and a protectionist. On this occasion, at the election held on 17 June 1891, Clark outpolled John F. Burns for the third seat, attracting 1,917 votes (18.4 percent). Although he had campaigned as an independent free trade candidate, Clark recognised that his election was "largely due to the vote of the working-men in his own neighbourhood". He had not contested as a nominee of the Labor Electoral League, but claimed he was "in thorough accord with the labor platform" and announced that he would "sit on the cross benches with the party", as a result of which Clark was considered to be one of the initial thirty-five elected Labor Electoral League candidates to win seats at the 1891 New South Wales election. He served a term as mayor of North Sydney from May to February 1893. Clark was one of the original trustees of the Kuring-gai Chase Trust, established in June 1894 to manage the
Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. Even though E. M. Clark was considered to be one of the thirty-five Labor members elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1891, by the time of the 1894 general election he was not counted amongst their number, neither as a solidarity candidate adhering to the caucus pledge or as an independent Labor candidate. At the
1894 general election the election of the member for St. Leonards, now a single-member electorate, became a contest between Henry Parkes and Clark, both of whom had been sitting members. Parkes, representing the Free Trade Party, was opposed by three independent free trade candidates (including Clark) and a protectionist. At the election held on 14 July 1894, Parkes topped the poll with 1,028 votes (50.1 percent), with Clark in second place with 825 votes (40.8 percent). At the 1894 election Joseph Cullen won the seat of Willoughby for the Free Trade Party. However, four months later, in November 1894, he was required to resign his seat after filing for bankruptcy. Cullen immediately offered himself for re-election at the by-election which was held on 30 November 1894. He was opposed by three other candidates, two of whom, Clark and
George Howarth, also represented the Free Trade Party. In a closely fought by-election Clark was elected to the seat, attracting 453 votes (39.5 percent). The Free Trade Party under the leadership of George Reid dominated the New South Wales Legislative Assembly after the July 1894 election. However, after the party's legislative reform agenda was subjected to obstruction by the
Legislative Council, Reid went to a
general election a year later in an effort to strengthen his mandate for reform. Even though Henry Parkes was the sitting member and a member of the Free Trade Party, the party committee chose Edward Clark as the nominee for the St. Leonards electorate. Parkes was a political rival of George Reid and his influence within parliament and the Free Trade Party had begun to wane. Parkes reacted by opposing Reid in the
Sydney-King electorate, where Reid was the sitting member. At the election Clark was returned as member for St. Leonards with 62.4 percent of the vote against one other candidate and Parkes was unsuccessful in his bid to unseat George Reid. Clark held the St. Leonards seat for the following two general elections. In
July 1898 he was opposed by a protectionist candidate, identified then as representing the National Federal Party, and two independent federalists, reflecting a focus on
Federation as an election issue. Clark was elected with 63.5 percent of the vote on that occasion. With Federation the main political parties re-evaluated their priorities which was reflected in name changes, with the
Protectionist Party becoming the
Progressive Party and the Free Trade Party becoming the
Liberal Reform Party. At the
1901 general election Clark was opposed in St. Leonards by two other candidates, one from the Labor Party and an independent liberal candidate, but was re-elected with 53.7 percent of the vote. For the
1904 general election Clark was not selected as the Liberal Reform Party candidate, with the party opting to select
Thomas Creswell as their nominee. Clark was one of two independent liberal candidates, along with a Labor Party candidate and another classified as 'independent'. Creswell, the Liberal Reform candidate, won the seat at the election held in August 1904. By the time of the
September 1907 general election the party alliances in the Legislative Assembly were essentially reduced to the Liberal Reform Party led by the premier,
Joseph Carruthers, and the Labor Electoral League under
James McGowen. In 1907 Creswell, the sitting member for St. Leonards, was not endorsed by the Liberal Reform Party, who instead chose John Carter as their nominee. Clark, along with Creswell and one other, contested the election as independents against Carter and a Labor candidate. In a close contest, Clark topped the poll with 37 percent of the vote and returned to parliament as, once again, the member for St. Leonards. Clark's victory against the selected Liberal Reform candidate in 1907 caused divisions within local party branches as they prepared for the
1910 general election. Amid disagreements as to whether to nominate a candidate against Clark, eventually
Arthur Cocks was chosen as the Liberal Reform nominee. The election was held in October 1910 between Clark, Cocks and a Labor candidate, resulting in Clark being defeated, polling third with 23.6 percent of the vote. After his defeat in 1910 Edward Clark made five further attempts to re-enter the New South Wales Legislative Assembly during the period 1913 to 1932, contesting elections in the Willoughby electorate and the
North Shore and
North Sydney electorates. At each unsuccessful attempt his poll numbers were moderate to low. From March 1918 to March 1919 Clark served his second term of mayor of North Sydney, having been an alderman on the council since its incorporation in 1890. == Personal life ==