In April 1901 ET Penny was inducted as a Justice of the Peace and served on the bench at the Cheltenham Court until his death in 1916. Being a Justice of the Peace was equivalent to being a Magistrate today. ET Penny sat on the bench with a number of other well-known people from the region. He heard many cases over his years serving including fining people for public drunkenness, failure to pay rates, wilful assault, failure to immunise children, failure to send children to school and even Murder. ET Penny was a man for the people and he treated everybody with respect and dignity. On 18 August 1887 a meeting was held at the Cheltenham Protestant hall to discuss the situation causing concern in the region – that being a large influx of Chinese into Victoria. The concern arose due to the Chinese taking on labour jobs at lower wages that other locals who missed out on the work and income. The Victorian Colonial Government saw what was happening and passed a law in 1855 to try to stem this tide but it failed and many Chinese came to the Victorian goldfields to find their wealth. After the gold began to get harder to find, many Chinese sought jobs throughout the metropolitan regions including the Cheltenham area. Whilst the tone of the meeting was protection of lands and wages, there was some who were simply looking at blaming the Chinese immigrants for their lot in life and began to spout anti-Chinese sentiment. ET Penny spoke up in support of the Chinese at the Cheltenham meeting while recognizing their numbers were likely to increase stating "They must not be ill-treated and we must look after them. When they lease our soil they have as much right to it as anyone else and the law must protect them. There were good Chinese and he would sooner trust them with £5 than many Europeans." Penny went on to say that if the community was to succeed