Sir Harry Sutherland Wightman LawsonKCMG (5 March 1875 – 12 June 1952),[1] was an Australian politician who served as Premier of Victoria from 1918 to 1924. He later entered federal politics, serving as a Senator for Victoria from 1929 to 1935, and was briefly a minister in the Lyons government. He was a member of the Nationalist Party until 1931, when it was subsumed into the United Australia Party.
Early life
Lawson was born in Dunolly, the son of a Presbyterian clergyman of Scottish descent. He was educated at a local school and then, briefly, at Scotch College in Melbourne. He was a noted Australian rules footballer, playing for Castlemaine. He studied law with a Melbourne law firm and was called to the bar. He began a practice in Castlemaine, and was elected to the town council, serving as mayor in 1905. In 1901, he married Olive Horwood, with whom he had eight children.[2]
Lawson became the longest-serving premier Victoria had seen, holding office for six continuous years, something none of his 26 predecessors had done. That was despite the further fragmentation of the non-Labor vote with the emergence of the Country Party. At the 1921 elections, Lawson's Nationalist Party won 30 seats, to Labor's 20 and the Country Party's 13. Both Labor and the Country Party preferred Lawson to each other, so Lawson was able to survive as a minority Premier. He was helped by Labor's continuing inability to win seats outside its strongholds in the industrial suburbs of Melbourne and a few provincial towns.[2]
The biggest test Lawson faced was the 1923 Victorian Police strike, which saw riots and looting in the streets of Melbourne. There was also increasingly bitter industrial strife in Melbourne as the prosperity of the pre-war years failed to return. There were major strikes on the waterfront and in the coal mining industry. Lawson gained a reputation as a tough conservative. He refused to give in to the demands of the police for better pay and conditions, running the risk of a breakdown in law and order, but once the strike was over he appointed a Royal Commission into police grievances, which gave them much of what they wanted.
In September 1923, Lawson formed Victoria's first conservative coalition, including five Country Party ministers. The coalition broke down in March 1924 when the Country Party made demands Lawson would not accept. The Country Party ministers resigned and united with Labor to bring Lawson down. After unsuccessfully contesting the Speakership, Lawson retired to the back bench, where he stayed until October 1928,[1] when he quit state politics altogether.[2]
Lawson died in East Melbourne,[1] survived by seven of his eight children. His wife died in 1949 and his youngest son, who had joined the Royal Australian Air Force, was killed in 1941.[2] His daughter, Helen Mary Keays, was appointed an OBE in 1972 for Women's Services. His last surviving child, Ina Constance Watson, died in Melbourne on 9 November 2012.
Geoff Browne, A Biographical Register of the Victorian Parliament, 1900-84, Government Printer, Melbourne, 1985
Don Garden, Victoria: A History, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1984
Robert S Lawson, Sir Harry Lawson - Premier and Senator, Mullaya Publications, Melbourne, 1976
Kathleen Thompson and Geoffrey Serle, A Biographical Register of the Victorian Parliament, 1856-1900, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1972
Raymond Wright, A People's Counsel. A History of the Parliament of Victoria, 1856-1990, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1992
External links
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