Everything about William Holman totally explained
William Arthur Holman (
4 August 1871 –
6 June 1934) was an
Australian Labor Party Premier of New South Wales,
Australia, who split with the party on the
conscription issue in 1916 during
World War I, and immediately became Premier of a conservative
Nationalist Party Government.
Early life
Holman was born in
St Pancras,
London,
England in 1871, the son of William Holman, an actor, his mother was also on the stage under the name of May Burney. He was educated at an
Anglican school and was apprenticed as a cabinetmaker. He attended night classes and literary societies. There were bad times in the theatrical profession during the 1880s, and the Holmans were glad to obtain an engagement with Brough and
Boucicault in Australia. The family migrated to
Melbourne,
Australia in October 1888. The burning of the
Bijou theatre in Melbourne resulted in their move to
Sydney.
Trade union activity
As a cabinet maker in Sydney he was interested in the ideas of
John Stuart Mill,
William Morris,
Herbert Spencer and
Charles Darwin, and became very active in the
Australian labour movement. He joined the
Single Tax League, the Australian Socialist League and the newly-formed Labor Electoral League, a forerunner to the Australian Labor Party (ALP). In the Australian Socialist League he mixed with
anarchists and
socialists and met future Prime Minister
Billy Hughes,
Creo Stanley,
Ernie Lane,
Henry Lawson and J.D.Fitzgerald. Holman and Hughes were associated with
Arthur Desmond on the scandal sheet paper,
The New Order.
In 1893 he became Secretary of the Railways and Tramways Employees’ Union, representing the union on the
Sydney Trades and Labor Council. With the support of the Labor Electoral League he unsuccessfully stood for election to the
New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1894 and 1895. During this period he was the proprietor of the
Daily Post newspaper, sympathetic to the labour movement, which wound up in liquidation, with Holman and four other directors convicted of fraud. He spent nearly two months in jail before the conviction was quashed. He went on to become a journalist for the
Grenfell Vedette, and later its proprietor. From 1896 to 1898 he worked as an organiser for the
Australian Workers Union. In 1910 the Labor Party first won Government in New South Wales with a slim majority of 46 seats in a parliament of 90 seats, with
James McGowen as Premier, and Holman made Attorney General.
On
30 June 1913 McGowen resigned and Holman took over as
Premier of New South Wales. During his government many
state-owned enterprises were established to compete with private businesses, as a compromise to the Labor policy on
Nationalisation. The Labor Party had a policy commitment to abolishing the
New South Wales Legislative Council, with Holman moving a motion in 1893 that the upper house be abolished. Only 47 per cent of Government bills were passed by the Upper House for the period between 1910 and 1916. But Holman contradicted his position in 1912 by making nine appointments to the Upper House, some of which were not members of the Labor Party, without consultation with the party machine or the Trades and Labor Council. Other issues placing him at odds with the labour movement include the failure to control prices and profiteering during the war, and attitudes to pay and conditions of public servants.
In 1916 the
conscription issue divided the Labor Party and wider Australian Community. While much of the Australian labour movement and general community were opposed to conscription, Australian Labor Prime Minister
Billy Hughes and Premier Holman strongly supported conscription, and both crossed the floor to join the conservative parties. Holman formed a coalition on
15 November 1916 with the leader of the opposition,
Charles Wade, with himself as Premier. At the general election in March 1917 he was elected as a
Nationalist Party of Australia candidate, and continued in the Premier's role.
During his leadership of the Nationalist Government he vigorously defended the Government-owned enterprises from his fellow conservatives in power. Most unusually for a serving Premier, he lost his seat in the state legislature on
12 April 1920, with the election of a Labor Government led by the short-lived
John Storey; but he continued outside Parliament as a senior figure in conservative politics.
Holman's later parliamentary career was less notable than might have been expected from his 1910-20 achievements. Elected as a
United Australia Party MP, for the
Division of Martin, to the
Australian House of Representatives in December 1931, he'd an undistinguished time in Federal Parliament as a backbencher in the
Joseph Lyons government. His health having deteriorated over a considerable period, he died on
6 June 1934 in the Sydney suburb of
Gordon, apparently from shock and loss of blood after a difficult tooth extraction on the previous day.
Holman is a controversial figure, as, along with
Billy Hughes, he's considered one of the "rats" of the
Australian labour movement for crossing to the conservative side of Australian politics.
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