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| Birth Name(s) : Chris Watson |
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Full Chris Watson Biography
John Christian Watson (April 9, 1867 – November 18, 1941), commonly known as Chris Watson, Australian politician, was the third Prime Minister of Australia, and the first federal parliamentary leader of the Australian Labour Party (renamed Labor in 1912 by King O'Malley). He was the party's first prime minister, and the first Labour Party prime minister in the world. Despite being elected Labour leader by the party caucus two months after the inaugural 1901 federal election (just before the first meeting of Parliament) and retiring in 1907, his tenure as Prime Minister was brief at only four months in 1904. According to Percival Serle, Watson "left a much greater impression on his time than this would suggest. He came at the right moment for his party, and nothing could have done it more good than the sincerity, courtesy and moderation which he always showed as a leader."
Watson went to school in Oamaru, New Zealand, and at 13 was apprenticed as a printer. In 1886 he moved to Sydney to better his prospects. He found work as a compositor for several newspapers. Through this proximity to newspapers, books and writers he furthered his education and developed an interest in politics.
Watson assisted to shape party policy regarding the movement for federation from 1895, and was one of ten Labour candidates nominated for the Australasian Federal Convention on 4 March 1897, however none were elected. The party, perforce, endorsed Federation, however they took a view of the draft Commonwealth constitution as undemocratic, believing the Senate as proposed was much too powerful, similar to the anti-reformist Colonial state upper houses, and the UK House of Lords. When the draft was submitted to a referendum on 3 June 1898, Labour opposed it, with Watson prominent in the campaign, and saw the referendum rejected.
Watson was devoted to the idea of a referendum as an ideal feature of democracy. To ensure that Reid might finally bring New South Wales into national union on an amended draft constitution, Watson helped to negotiate a deal, involving the party executive, that included the nomination of four Labor men to the Legislative Council. At the March 1899 annual party conference, Hughes and Holman moved to have those arrangements nullified and party policy on Federation changed, thus thwarting Reid's plans. Watson, for once, got angry; he 'jumped to his feet in a most excited manner and in heated tones … contended … that they should not interfere with the referendum'. The motion was lost. The four party men were nominated to the council on 4 April and the bill approving the second referendum, to be held on 20 June, was passed on 20 April.
Labour, including Watson, opposed the final terms of the Commonwealth Constitution, however their voting status was not enough to stop it from proceeding, and unlike Holman and Hughes, he believed that it should be submitted to the people. Nevertheless, with all but two of the Labour parliamentarians, he campaigned against the 'Yes' vote at the referendum. When the Constitution was accepted, he agreed that 'the mandate of the majority will have to be obeyed'. He had made an essential contribution to that democratic decision.
Watson successfully ran for the new federal Parliament at the inaugural 1901 federal election, in the House of Representatives rural seat of Bland.
In the federal Parliament, where Labour was the smallest of the three parties, but held the balance of power, Watson pursued the same policy as Labour had done in the colonial parliaments. He kept the Protectionist governments of Edmund Barton and Alfred Deakin in office, in exchange for legislation enacting the Labour platform.
Watson, as a Labour moderate, genuinely admired Deakin and shared his liberal views on many subjects. Deakin reciprocated this sentiment. He wrote in one of his anonymous articles in a London newspaper: "The Labour section has much cause for gratitude to Mr Watson, the leader whose tact and judgement have enabled it to achieve many of its Parliamentary successes."
Watson led the Labor Party into the 1906 federal election and improved its position again. At this election the seat of Bland was abolished, so he shifted to the seat of South Sydney. But in October 1907, mainly due to concern over the health of his wife Ada, he resigned the Labor leadership in favour of Andrew Fisher. At the 1910 elections, at which Fisher beat Deakin comfortably, he retired from politics, aged only 42.
Out of the Parliamentary arena, Watson continued to work for Labor, becoming Director of Labor Papers Ltd, publishers of The Worker, the Australian Workers Union paper. He also pursued a business career. But in 1916 the Labor party split over the issue of conscription for World War I, and Watson sided with Hughes and the conscriptionists. He was expelled from the party he had helped found. He remained active in the affairs of Hughes's Nationalist Party until 1922, but after that he drifted out of politics altogether.
Australian politician, Prime Minister of Australia and first federal leader of the Australian Labor PartyDATE OF BIRTH |
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