Billy Hughes Totally Explained

Everything about Billy Hughes totally explained

William Morris 'Billy' Hughes, CH, KC (25 September, 1862 – 28 October, 1952), Australian politician, was the seventh Prime Minister of Australia, the longest-serving member of the Australian Parliament, and one of the most colourful figures in Australian political history. Over the course of his 51 year federal parliamentary career (and an additional 7 prior to that in a colonial parliament), Hughes changed parties five times: from Labor to National Labor to Nationalist to Australian to United Australia to Liberal, was expelled from three, and represented four different electorates in two states.

Early years

William Morris "Billy" Hughes was born in Pimlico, London on 25 September 1862 of Welsh parents. His father William Hughes was Welsh speaking and, according to the 1881 census, born in Holyhead, Anglesey, North Wales in about 1825. He was a deacon of the Particular Baptist Church and by profession a joiner and a carpenter at the House of Lords. His mother was a farmer's daughter from Llansaintffraid, Montgomeryshire and had been in service in London. Jane Morris was thirty seven when she married and William Morris Hughes was her only child. After his mother's death when he was seven William Hughes lived with his father's sister in Llandudno, Wales, also spending time with his mother's relatives in rural Montgomeryshire, where he picked up some fluency in Welsh. A plaque on a guest house in Abbey Road Llandudno bears testament to his residency. When he was 14 he returned to London and worked as a pupil teacher. In 1881, when he was 19, William lived with his father and his father's elder sister Mary Hughes at 78 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London.
In October 1884 he migrated to Australia, and worked as a labourer, bush worker and cook. He arrived in Sydney in 1886 and lived in a boarding house in Moore Park and established a common law marriage with his landlady's daughter, Elizabeth Cutts. In 1890 they moved to Balmain where he opened a small mixed shop, where he sold political pamphlets, did odd jobs and mended umbrellas. He joined the Socialist League in 1892 and became a street-corner speaker for the Balmain Single Tax League and an organiser with the Australian Workers' Union and may have already joined the newly formed Labor Party. Melbourne's Roman Catholic Archbishop, Daniel Mannix, was his main opponent on the conscription issue. (Although the enabling legislation, the Military Service Referendum Act 1916, referred to it as a referendum that's incorrect as, unlike a referendum, the outcome was advisory only, and wasn't legally binding). The defeat, however, didn't deter Hughes, who continued to vigorously argue in favour of conscription. This produced a deep and bitter split within the Australian community, as well as within the members of his own party.
On September 15, 1916 the NSW executive of the Political Labour League (the Labor Party organisation at the time) expelled Hughes from the Labor Party. When the Federal Parliamentary Labor caucus met on 14 November 1916, lengthy discussions ensued until Hughes walked out with 24 other Labor members and the remaining (43) members of Caucus then passed their motion of no confidence in the leadership, effectively expelling Hughes and the other members. Years later, Hughes said, "I didn't leave the Labor Party. The party left me." Those changes were considered to be a response to the emergence of the Country Party, so that the non-Labor vote wouldn't be split, as it would have been under the previous first-past-the-post system.

Hughes attends Paris peace conference

In 1919, Hughes and former Prime Minister Joseph Cook travelled to London to attend the Versailles peace conference. He remained away for 16 months, and signed the Treaty of Versailles on behalf of Australia - the first time Australia had signed an international treaty. At Versailles Hughes, claimed; "I speak for 60 000 [Australian] dead". Hughes, unlike US President Wilson or Smuts of South Africa demanded heavy reparations from Germany suggesting a staggering sum of (Pounds) 24,000 Million, of which Australia would claim many millions, to off-set its own war debt. Hughes frequently clashed with President Woodrow Wilson of the United States, who described him as a 'pestiferous varmint'. Hughes demanded that Australia have independent representation within the newly formed League of Nations. Despite the rejection of his conscription policy, Hughes retained his popularity, and in December 1919 his government was comfortably re-elected. At the Treaty negotiations, Hughes was the most prominent opponent of the inclusion of the Japanese racial equality proposal, which as a result of lobbying by him and others wasn't included in the final Treaty. His position on this issue reflected the modal thought of 'racial categories' during this time. Japan was notably offended by Hughes' position on the issue. In 1919 at the Peace Conference the Domonion leaders, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia argued their case to keep their occupied German possessions of German Samoa, German South West Africa, and German New Guinea; these territories were given a "Class C Mandates" to the respective Dominions. In a same-same deal Japan obtained control over its occupied German possessions, north of the equator.

Political eclipse

After 1920 Hughes's political position declined. Many elements of his own party never trusted him because they thought he was still a socialist at bottom, citing his interest in retaining government ownership of the Commonwealth Shipping Line and the Australian Wireless Company. However, they continued to support him for some time after the war, if only to keep Labor out of power.
A new party, the Country Party (now the National Party), was formed, representing farmers who were discontented with the Nationalists' rural policies, in particular Hughes' acceptance of a much higher level of tariff protection for Australian industries (that had expanded during the war) and his support for price controls on rural produce. At the 1922 federal election, Hughes switched from the rural seat of Bendigo to North Sydney, but the Nationalists lost their outright majority. The Country Party, running in its first election as a united party, held the balance of power, leaving party leader Earle Page theoretically able to choose the next Prime Minister. Eventually, Page decided to go into coalition with the Nationalists, but let it be known that he and his party wouldn't serve under Hughes. Under pressure from his party's right wing, Hughes resigned in February 1923 and was succeeded by his Treasurer, Stanley Bruce. In 1931 he buried the hatchet with his former colleagues and joined the new United Australia Party (UAP), under the leadership of Joseph Lyons.
His term as Australian Prime Minister was a record until overtaken by Robert Menzies. He remained Australia's second-longest serving Prime Minister until overtaken by Malcolm Fraser in late February 1983.

Political re-emergence

In 1934 he became Minister for Health and Repatriation in the Lyons government. He was also Minister for the Navy, Minister for Industry and Attorney-General at various times under Lyons and his successor, Robert Menzies, between 1934 and 1941. However, he remained a controversial figure. After 1936 he was a vocal opponent of the British policy of appeasement at a time when this policy enjoyed bi-partisan support. In 1937 he was forced to resign from the government after publishing a book attacking Britain's policies with regard to German rearmament and Japanese actions in China. After the UAP nearly lost the 1940 federal election, Menzies was forced to resign by his colleagues, and in October 1941 Labor came to power under John Curtin. Menzies then resigned as UAP leader, and Hughes, aged 79 and very frail, was elected party leader.
Hughes led the UAP into the 1943 election largely by refusing to hold any party meetings and by agreeing to let Arthur Fadden (Country Party leader) lead the Opposition as a whole, but was defeated, and resigned in favour of Menzies. In February 1944 the UAP withdrew its members from the Advisory War Council in protest against the Labor government of John Curtin. Hughes, however, rejoined the council, and for that he was expelled from the UAP. potentially due to the fact it was the Country Party who was responsible for bringing his Prime Ministership down in 1923.

Honours

The electoral division of Hughes and the Canberra suburb of Hughes are named after him. In addition, he took his second wife on a long drive in 1911 because he didn't have time for a honeymoon and crashed where the Sydney-Melbourne road crossed the Sydney-Melbourne railway north of Albury, leading to the crossing being named after Billy Hughes; it was later replaced by the Billy Hughes Bridge.

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