William Morris Hughes

Party

Electorate

State

Parliamentary Service

Ministerial Appointments

Committee Service

Conferences

Parliamentary Party Positions

Other Positions

Education

Occupations

Family History

Honours

Publications

Further Reading

‘Billy’ Hughes was a stormbird of Australian politics for almost 60 years and the target of both hatred and admiration. His ardent support of Australian fighting men caused the soldiers to call him 'The Little Digger' Enemies called him ‘The Rat’, a reference to his scrawny frame and scurrying energy and to his ‘ratting’ on the Labor Party. Cartoonists usually portrayed him with cunning hobgoblin features and bat ears.

Born in London in 1862 of Welsh-English parentage, he was voluble, volatile, stubborn, shrewd and artful. He began his working life as a teenage teacher and, if some spark of adventure had not impelled him to Australia in 1884, he would probably have spent his days in obscurity. Despite a meagre physique and nagging disabilities, including deafness, he lived to be 90.

His first years in Australia are known only through his own colourful reminiscences. The story, or legend, depicts him as ship's cook, seaman, drover, swagman, boundary rider, factory hand, umbrella mender and railway fettler. By 1890 he was working in Sydney, where he married his landlady's daughter and opened a small mixed business.

His rough-and-tumble years gave him Labor sympathies and a first-hand knowledge of Australian workers. Possibly these influences, plus a substantial ego and a talent for public speaking (he once won a contest for speaking, on the subject of 'Myself') inspired a political debut as a street-corner speaker. He joined the Socialist League, held meetings in the back room of his shop, met Chris Watson (with whom he articulated Labor philosophy) and became a fulltime union organiser.

In 1894 his Labor friends nominated him for a seat in the Colonial Parliament - and bought him a new suit when he won. As a union leader and Labor parliamentarian, he began to develop the ‘Hughes style’ of building a good public image for unionism by discipline and moderation while fighting for the union cause in parliament. He continued these tactics when he founded the Waterside Workers' Federation and became its first president. It was a year before his election to the first Commonwealth Parliament. Part-time law studies brought his admission to the Bar and secured his promotion to Attorney-General in Andrew Fisher's three governments.

He was virtually Fisher's shadow for several years. With ebullient energy, he sat on committees and Royal Commissions and represented Australia in the 1907 Navigation Conference in London. When Fisher retired as Prime Minister, the Labor Party chose Hughes as his natural successor.

It was the time when Australian servicemen were learning the terrible truth about modern war, with their ranks being depleted almost as fast as volunteers could fill them. Many patriots, including Hughes, advocated conscription for overseas service. But a Labor majority would accept conscription only for home defence. Many descendants of Irish Catholics deplored any help to Britain because of the savage suppression of Irish freedom fighters.

In 1916 Hughes brought the issue to a head with a referendum on conscription. When it was defeated, he split Labor by leading 23 defectors to form the National Labor Party. He survived as Prime Minister with the support of the Liberals and disgusted true Labor men by merging NLP and Liberals as the National Party. In May 1917, he led this new alliance to electoral victory. But when he put another conscription referendum to the public, his opponents campaigned against it even more bitterly than before. The ‘no’ vote won again and Australia's 226,073 war casualties were all volunteers.

Despite fierce antagonism Hughes was a vigorous and inspiring wartime leader who forced British recognition of Australia as an independent military power. He insisted on an Australian seat at the peace conference, secured the Australian mandate over German New Guinea and rewarded the servicemen with generous repatriation benefits.

With Labor in disarray because of his defection, Hughes called a 1919 election but discovered he could govern only with the help of the new Country Party. Another election, in late 1922, made the new party even stronger. It refused to accept Hughes as Prime Minister and he handed over to Stanley Bruce.

For the next 29 years his political life was one of frequent manoeuvring. In 1929 he sided with Labor to dismiss Bruce, then failed to form a new party and joined the right-wing United Australia Party. He held ministerial portfolios in the UAP, made a bid for the Prime Ministership in 1939 (but lost to R. G. Menzies), worked with Labor on the 1941-45 Advisory War Council, was expelled by the UAP and finally joined Menzies in the revival of the Liberal Party.

Still controversial and influential, he died in political harness in 1952 and both friends and enemies attended his State Funeral.

Top