This blog is written by Christopher and Vivenne Parry, fellow history sleuths, who have kindly given me permission to publish the research they have conducted on famous local identities. The first of these identities is The Right Honourable Sir Arthur Fadden.
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| Sir Arthur Fadden. Source: Parliament of Australia. Portraits of Parliament https://www.aph.gov.au/Visit_Parliament/Art/Online_Gallery/Portrait_Gallery |
The Right Honourable Sir
Arthur Fadden, or Artie
to his friends and supporters, was Prime Minister from 29 August to 7 October in
1941. As well as his “40 days and 40 nights” in office, he was acting Prime
Minister for periods totalling nearly two years during his coalition
governments with Prime Minister Robert Menzies. He was a member of the House of
Representatives for 22 years, from 1936 to 1958, and leader of the Country Party
for 17 years, from 1941 to 1958. As Treasurer in 1940–41 and from 1949 to 1958,
he presented a record 11 budgets.
He
was born in Ingham to Irish immigrant parents, Annie (née Moorhead) and Richard John Fadden. His father was the police
constable at Halifax and met Annie not long after moving to the district. They married in 1893 and Artie was born not long after in 1894. He was the eldest of ten children – seven sons and three
daughters. The family moved to Walkerston near
Mackay around 1900, where his father was officer-in-charge of the police
station. He was raised in Walkerston, his first paid jobs included collecting
cane beetles and performing sound effects at the local cinema. He left school
at the age of 15 and began working as a "billy boy" (odd-job man) on
a cane-cutting gang at Pleystowe. He later got an indoor job as an office boy
at the Pleystowe Sugar Mill. In his spare time, he developed an interest in the
theatre, both as a performer and treasurer of the local theatre company.
In
1913 he moved to Mackay as assistant town clerk. In 1916, his superior,
Frederick Morley, was dismissed over allegations of theft, which Fadden himself
had uncovered. Morley eventually received a two-year jail term, and Fadden was
promoted in his place, after defeating more than 50 other applicants; he was
reputedly the "youngest town clerk in Australia".
He
had tried to enlist in the Australian Army in 1915, but was rejected on health
grounds. In 1918, he served on the committee of the relief fund for the Mackay
cyclone, which devastated the town and killed thirty people. He then moved to
Townsville where he established his own accountancy firm. He had qualified as
an accountant through a correspondence course from a school in Melbourne.
In
1928 and 1929 Artie bought two cane farms near Trebonne. He formed a company
called Sugar Lands, and H. H. Cousins managed the properties until 1940. G. G.
Venables was the next manager. It has been said that he drove up to see the
farm in his Rolls Royce, and called in to the Trebonne Hotel for a chat with
the locals. In 1943 Artie sued The Worker
newspaper, the Australian Labor Party’s official paper in Queensland, for
defamation. The paper had claimed that Sugar Lands had employed Italians, who
they called “enemy aliens” in preference to Australian trade union members.
Artie won the case, but was awarded much less than he claimed in damages.
He
was elected to the Townsville City Council in 1930, and in 1932 was elected to
the Queensland Legislative Assembly for the Country and Progressive National
Party. He lost his seat in 1935, but the following year won a by-election in
the Federal Electorate of Darling Downs.
In
1916 he had married Ilma Nita Thornber who worked as a milliner in Mackay. Like
him, she was active in local community affairs. Ilma Fadden was an active
‘political wife’ and well known in the Townsville community in the 1920s. When
the family moved to Brisbane Ilma became active in state and national
organisations. She was a tireless campaign worker in the nine federal elections
Arthur contested and she also accompanied him on many of his official trips
overseas.
In
1940 Artie was named a minister in the government of Robert Menzies, who led
the United Australia Party in a coalition with the Country Party. Also in 1940,
he narrowly escaped being killed in the Canberra air disaster which claimed the
lives of three government ministers and the Chief of the General Staff. He was
scheduled to be aboard the flight which was transporting the ministers back to
Canberra after a cabinet meeting in Melbourne, but instead he took an overnight
train.
In
1940 he became leader of the Country Party, Deputy Prime Minister and
Treasurer. He presented his first budget less than a month later. The budget
featured increased spending due to the war, paid for by increases in taxation. It
was highly unpopular among the general public, which up until that point had seen
the war to be still quite distant. The independent MPs contemplated voting with
the opposition to reject the budget, but after negotiations and some amendments
it was passed, allowing the government to continue in power.
Artie
served as acting prime minister for four months early in 1941 while Menzies was
away in Europe. After dissension within the UAP-CP coalition, Menzies resigned
as Prime Minister. A joint party meeting chose Fadden as Coalition leader even
though the Country Party was the smaller of the two coalition parties. Artie
consequently became Prime Minister.
Artie’s
term of office was troubled from the start. Even parliamentarians in his own
party feared the worst. It was said that he decided against moving into The
Lodge, the official Prime Minister's residence in Canberra, after fellow
Country Party member Archie Cameron crudely told him "You’ll scarcely have
enough time to wear a track from the backdoor to the shithouse before you’ll be
out". He held office for just 39 days before being replaced by John
Curtin, whose Labor Party had successfully moved a motion of no confidence.
After losing the prime ministership, Arthur continued on as Leader of the
Opposition for two more years.
Menzies
then formed the Liberal Party and was elected Prime Minister in 1949. Artie
became Treasurer for a second time, holding this office for ten years until his
retirement from politics in 1958. Only Peter Costello has served in the
position for longer. Although inflation was high in the early 1950s, forcing
him to impose several "horror budgets", he generally presided over a booming
economy, with times especially good for farmers.
After the 1951-52 'horror' budget he was so
unpopular that he remarked, “I could have had a meeting of all my friends and
supporters in a one-man telephone booth”.
On
the night before the 1954 federal election, Artie was seriously injured in a
car accident while travelling back to Brisbane from Dalby. The car in which he
was travelling failed to negotiate a curve on a slippery road, and rolled three
times. Artie, who had been sitting next to the driver, was pulled from the car
unconscious and spent election day in hospital, unable to cast his vote. He was
left with injuries to his face, head, and legs, and required five separate
operations.
Artie
resigned as leader of the Country Party in 1958, with John McEwen elected as
his successor. He retired from politics at the 1958 election.
In
1969, Artie published a memoir titled They
Called Me Artie. He had previously published articles in the Courier Mail
describing episodes from his past. One story from his childhood, when he was
about 12 years of age, related to the time his father had left him in charge of
the police lockup. He was to let the five
prisoners out for exercise and lock them up again later. Artie let them out but got involved in a game
of cricket with his mates. When his father rode in he saw the cell doors open
and called out, “Where are the prisoners Artie?” His father then rode down to
the pub where he found the five prisoners in the bar.
Arthur
Fadden enjoyed one of the most rapid rises in Australian political history,
moving from private citizen to the prime ministership in just 11 years. He was
the first prime minister born in Queensland, and the first and only member of
the Country Party to become prime minister with his own mandate (rather than
just serving as a caretaker after the death of a predecessor).
He
was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in
1951. He was knighted in person by King George VI in London on 31 January 1952,
only a week before the King's death. In his memoirs he recalled that the King
had accidentally knighted him as "Sir William" (his middle name). He
corrected the King who performed the ceremony again as "Sir Arthur".
In his memoirs there is a story about his arrival at Mackay soon after he had
been knighted. An old friend from his childhood, an Aboriginal person named
Harry, greeted him warmly, only to be told by one of the entourage that he
should address Fadden as 'Sir'. 'What', replied Harry, 'You now a school
teacher, Artie?'
After
Artie’s death in 1973, the Canberra suburb of Fadden and the federal electoral
Division of Fadden were named in his honour, as is traditional for Australian
prime ministers. His sculpture is in the Prime Minister's Avenue in
the Ballarat Botanical Gardens. In 1950 and again in 1994 he was depicted on
postage stamps. In 1976, the Sir Arthur Fadden Memorial Garden was established
in the Brisbane suburb of Mount Ommaney, consisting of 3,000 trees. In Townsville,
there is a Fadden Park in Mundingburra while Ingham honours him with Sir Arthur
Fadden Parade, a road leading out of town.
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Minister for the Army Percy Spender, Arthur Fadden and Robert Menzies at an emergency meeting to discuss the Japanese crisis, 1941. Source: State Library of Victoria. Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs. Image No. H99.201/2592.
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Former historic Halifax Police Station (no longer on site). Source: https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-other-qld-halifax-106144880 |
Sources:
Sir
Arthur Fadden. They Called Me Artie. Jacaranda
Press: Milton, Qld., 1969.
Cribb,
Margaret Bridson. “Fadden, Sir Arthur William (1894–1973)”. Australian
Dictionary of Biography, Volume 14. Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 1996. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/fadden-sir-arthur-william-10141
“Fadden
claims £5000 says was defamed”. Trove.
Parliament
of Australia. Portraits of Parliament https://www.aph.gov.au/Visit_Parliament/Art/Online_Gallery/Portrait_Gallery
Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArthurFadden
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