Bernhard Ringrose Wise (10 February 1858 – 19 September 1916), commonly referred to as B. R. Wise, was an Australian politician. He was a social reformer, seen by some as a traitor to his class, but who was not fully accepted by the labour movement. He said, "My failure in Sydney has been so complete—my qualities those which Australia does not recognise, my defects those which Australians dislike most." When he died, William Holman said, "There is hardly anything in our public life which we have to consider to-day that cannot be traced back to his brilliant mind and clear foresight … [Wise] held undisputed supremacy as the foremost debater, foremost thinker and foremost public man in the life of New South Wales".
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Early life
Wise was born in the Sydney suburb of Petersham. He was the second son of Edward Wise, a judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, and Maria Bate (née Smith). After his father's death in 1865, his mother took the family to Leeds, England to put her sons through grammar school, where their "homemade clothes exposed us to ridicule and bullying". She moved to Rugby and took work, so that Wise could be educated at Rugby School as a day student. Wise won a £90-a-year scholarship to The Queen's College, Oxford.