First Among Equals (2 page)

Nicknamed ‘Toby Tosspot' by the
Bulletin
for his fondness for food and wine, Barton was born in the Sydney suburb of Glebe on 18 January 1849. The second youngest of the nine surviving children of William and Mary Louise Barton, he was educated at Sydney Grammar School. Barton then studied the classics at the University of Sydney where he excelled at cricket and graduated with first-class honours in 1868. After completing his Master's degree, Barton qualified as a barrister in 1871. In 1877 he married Jane Mason Ross whom he met while on a cricket tour to Newcastle in 1870.

His long-time friend George Reid introduced Barton to debating at the Sydney School of Arts Debating Society where he became a proficient public speaker and developed an interest in politics. In 1879, Barton successfully contested the seat of the University of Sydney in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly.
When the seat was abolished the following year, he became the member for Wellington. At the age of 33 Barton became the speaker of the Legislative Assembly, the youngest presiding officer to be chosen by an Australian legislature. Here he was influenced by Henry Parkes, a leading federalist who was premier of New South Wales five times, and was subsequently installed in the Legislative Council for the next four years.

Spurred on by Parkes' famous Tenterfield speech on 24 October 1889, Barton gave up his chance for high office in New South Wales to campaign tirelessly for Federation. At the first Federal Convention held in 1891, Barton became a Constitutional Committee member. This same year Barton won the seat of East Sydney and re-entered the assembly. Barton then led the sittings of the 1897-98 Federal Convention and played a major role in supporting the Constitution that, after two referendums, was adopted in 1899.

Originally leaning towards the Free Traders, Barton switched his allegiances to the Protectionist Party and was subsequently denounced by Parkes in 1893. However, following Parkes' death in 1896, Barton carried on his commitment to Federation, eventually travelling to Britain to see the bill passed by the Westminster Parliament in 1900.

Despite his popularity, Barton was not the first
choice for the prime-ministership. Instead the newly appointed governor-general, Lord Hopetoun, offered the position to Sir William Lyne, the then premier of New South Wales. Lyne, however, was unable to form a cabinet and so the post went to Barton. Thus, on 1 January 1901, at the age of 52, Barton became Australia's first prime minister.

Once in power Barton's government passed a number of significant acts including the
Immigration Restriction Act
of 1902, which was the start of the White Australia policy, and the
Pacific Island Labourers' Bill,
which led to the expulsion of almost 10,000 Pacific Islanders from Queensland's sugar plantations. On a more positive note, under Barton's leadership, women won the right to vote in 1902 and the foundations for Australia's High Court were laid.

Within a year of becoming prime minister, Barton set sail for England to attend the Imperial Conference and coronation of Edward VII. Here he was bestowed as a Knight of the Grand Cross of St Michael and St George — the highest knighthood available in the Empire. Because of Australia's distance from Britain, Barton was absent from Australia for six consecutive months, leaving Alfred Deakin to shoulder the responsibility of the new nation's problems.

In September 1903, with popular opinion turning against him, Barton resigned as prime minister to
become one of the founding justices of the High Court of Australia, where he remained for the next sixteen years. On 7 January 1920, at the age of 70, Barton died of a sudden heart attack at Medlow Bath, in New South Wales.

ALFRED DEAKIN

THE CONSTRUCTOR

TERMS

24 September 1903-27 April 1904
5 July 1905-13 November 1908
2 June 1909-29 April 1910

C
onsidered one of Australia's greatest prime ministers, Alfred Deakin held office three times in the first decade of Federation. Referred to as ‘affable Alfred' because of his gentle looks and manner, Deakin was well liked on both sides of politics. Yet while he maintained a high public profile, he was reputedly very private. He shunned pomp and honours, penned sonnets for his wife and, during his time in parliament, wrote anonymously for the London
Morning Post.

Deakin was born on 3 August 1856 in Fitzroy, Melbourne. The second child of William and Sarah Deakin who emigrated to Australia in 1849, he was educated at Melbourne Grammar School, before reading law at Melbourne University. Although he qualified for the Bar in 1877 at the age of 21, he made his name as a journalist writing for
The Age
after meeting its editor, David Syme, in 1878.

Under Syme's tutelage, Deakin changed from a Free Trader to a Protectionist and turned his attention to politics. He ran for the rural seat of West Bourke in 1879, but it was not until 1880 that he secured the seat and established himself in the arena of Victorian politics. Then, in 1882, Deakin married Elizabeth Martha Anne ‘Pattie' Browne whom he had met through his strong association with spiritualism.

During his time in the Victorian government, Deakin held office in several ministries including public
works, water supply and as solicitor-general. In 1885 Deakin introduced pioneering legislation regulating employment conditions and hours of work in factories. After the 1887 Imperial Conference in London, where he turned down a knighthood, Deakin began to focus his attention towards Federation. He was a delegate at the Federal Conventions of 1891 and 1897-98, subsequently accompanying Barton to London in 1900 to negotiate the passage of the
Federation Bill.

Upon Federation, Deakin became Australia's first attorney-general. He became Australia's second prime minister when Barton resigned in 1903. However, because of ideological differences with his Protectionist Party's coalition partner, the Labor Party, he resigned after only seven months in the position, handing over power to John Watson. While George Reid then succeeded Watson, with the renewed support of the Labor Party, Deakin resumed the prime-ministership in July 1905.

During his second term as prime minister, Deakin established institutions such as the Public Service, the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and the Arbitration Commission. He also introduced the old-age pension, a new Australian currency and began setting the foundations for the Australian Navy.

In 1908 Andrew Fisher succeeded Watson as the leader of the Labor Party and then forced Deakin to
resign. Deakin then joined forces with Free Trade leader Joseph Cook, forming the Fusion Party in 1909 and again becoming prime minister, but was quickly defeated in the 1910 election.

Deakin stayed on as leader of the opposition, though with his health failing, he eventually resigned from parliament in 1913. Despite his ill health, Deakin accepted the position to chair a Royal Commission on Food Supply in 1914, and also acted as president of the Australian Commission at the International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915. He died in Melbourne on 7 October 1919 at the age of 63.

JOHN CHRISTIAN WATSON

THE RISE OF THE LABOR PARTY

TERM

27 April 1904-17 August 1904

J
ohn Christian Watson's brief term in office left a lasting impression on Australia's political landscape. Not only was he, at the age of 37, Australia's youngest prime minister, but he also led the world's first Labor government, paving the way for future Labor leaders.

Watson was born in Valparaíso, Chile, on 9 April 1867 and was the only son of Martha and Johan Tanck. When Watson was two, his parents separated and his mother returned home to her native New Zealand and married British seaman George Watson. Watson adopted the surname of his stepfather, disguising the fact that he was not a British subject, which would have made him ineligible to stand for parliament. This, however, did not come to light until after Watson's death.

Watson went to school in Oamaru, New Zealand, leaving at the age of eleven to work on a railway construction site. At thirteen, he was apprenticed as a printer, eventually qualifying as a newspaper compositor. In 1886, at the age of nineteen, Watson migrated to New South Wales where he worked in Sydney for several newspapers including the
Daily Telegraph,
the
Sydney Morning Herald
and the
Australian Star.

In 1889 he married Ada Jane Low, a Sydney seamstress. Three months later, at the age of 22, the Typographical Union appointed him a delegate to
the New South Wales Trades and Labor Council. A founding member of the New South Wales Labor Party, Watson was also the vice-president of the Trades and Labor Council in 1892. In 1894 he was elected to the New South Wales seat of Young.

Like most Labor leaders of his time, Watson was originally opposed to Federation, but once it was achieved he stood for federal election. He won the seat of Bland in March 1901 and was elected leader of the Australian Labor Party that same year. With the Labor Party the smallest of the three parties in parliament, they formed a coalition with the Protectionist Party in exchange for the promotion of their policies, in particular the White Australia policy. However, a dispute over extending the scope of the
Conciliation and Arbitration Bill
to include railway workers and public servants saw Watson join forces with Reid to drive out Deakin in 1904.

Although Watson was only prime minister for a short time, his contributions were extensive. In particular, he appointed a Royal Commission into navigation and shipping which led to the drafting of the
Navigation Act.
But when Watson tried to push through his own version of the
Conciliation and Arbitration Bill
, Deakin and Reid united against him. When the governor-general, Lord Northcote, refused Watson's call for the dissolution of parliament, he was
forced to resign and Reid became prime minister.

Watson remained opposition leader for three years, resigning from the post in 1907 to make way for Andrew Fisher. He then served as a private member of parliament, retiring in 1910. Watson was eventually expelled from the Labor Party in 1917 when he openly supported conscription in defiance of the party policy.

He then devoted his energies to business, helping to establish the National Roads and Motorists' Association (NRMA) and Australian Motorists Petroleum and Oil Company (AMPOL), which he became the chairman of in 1936. After the death of his first wife, Ada, Watson married Antonia Lane in 1925. He then lived quietly at his home in the Sydney suburb of Double Bay until his death, on 18 November 1941 at the age of 74.

SIR GEORGE HOUSTOUN REID

THE ‘YES-NO' PRIME MINISTER

TERM

18 August 1904-5 July 1905

A
ustralia's only Free Trade prime minister, Sir George Houstoun Reid holds the distinction of being the only politician to serve in all three parliaments — the colonial, commonwealth, and imperial. While he only held office for eleven months, he served in government for more than 30 years, losing only one of sixteen parliamentary elections.

Reid was born in Scotland on 25 February 1845 at Johnstone, Renfrewshire, and was one of seven children to John and Marian Reid. With his father sick with bronchitis, the family migrated to Melbourne in 1852 on medical advice. Reid began his schooling at the Presbyterian Melbourne Academy (later Scotch College). When the family moved to Sydney in 1858, Reid left school and gained work as a clerk in a merchant's office, at the age of thirteen. At the age of fifteen he joined the School of Arts Debating Society, recruiting, among others, Edmund Barton.