Eddie Ward
Minister for Labour and National Service | |
---|---|
In office 7 October 1941 – 21 September 1943 | |
Prime Minister | John Curtin |
Preceded by | Harold Holt |
Succeeded by | Jack Holloway |
Father of the House | |
In office 9 December 1961 – 31 July 1963 | |
Preceded by | Earle Page |
Succeeded by | Joe Clark |
Member of the Australian Parliament for East Sydney | |
In office 6 February 1932 – 31 July 1963 | |
Preceded by | John Clasby |
Succeeded by | Len Devine |
In office 7 March 1931 – 19 December 1931 | |
Preceded by | John West |
Succeeded by | John Clasby |
Personal details | |
Born | Darlinghurst, New South Wales, Australia | 7 March 1899
Political party | Labor |
Other political affiliations | Lang Labor (1931–36) |
Spouse |
Edith Bishop (m. 1924) |
Occupation | Unionist |
Edward John Ward (7 March 1899 – 31 July 1963) was an Australian politician who represented the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in federal parliament for over 30 years. He was the member for East Sydney for all but six and a half weeks from 1931 until his death in 1963. He served as a minister in the Curtin and Chifley governments from 1941 to 1949, and was also known for his role in the ALP split of 1931.
Ward was born in Sydney and left school at the age of 14; he became involved in the labour movement at a young age. He was elected to the Sydney Municipal Council in 1930, and the following year won Labor preselection for the 1931 East Sydney by-election. He was elected to the House of Representatives, but Prime Minister James Scullin refused him admission to the ALP caucus due to his support for Jack Lang. Ward and six other "Lang Labor" MPs formed a separate parliamentary party and eventually brought down Scullin's government. He lost his seat at the 1931 federal election. However, his successor John Clasby died only a month later and he re-entered parliament at the ensuing by-election, and held the seat until his death.
In 1941, Ward was elected to
Early life
Ward was born on 21 March 1899 in Darlington, Sydney, New South Wales. He was the fourth child and oldest son born to Mary Ann (née Maher) and Edward James Ward; his father worked for the Sydney tramways. His parents, born in Australia, were of Irish Catholic descent.[1]
Ward began his education at the St Francis de Sales convent school, later attending the Cleveland Street Public School and the Crown Street Public School. He left school at the age of 14 and worked variously as a fruit-picker, printer's devil, tarpaulin-maker, and as a clerk at a hardware store. He eventually found work at the Eveleigh Railway Workshops, but was sacked for his involvement in the 1917 general strike.[1] In 1919 he received a head injury while protesting the deportation of labour leader Paul Freeman.[2] During the 1920s, Ward worked on the tramways as a labourer and chainman. He supplemented his income by boxing professionally. He married Edith Bishop on 27 September 1924, with whom he had two children.[1]
Ward joined the Labor Party at the age of 16, and became the president of its Surry Hills branch. He served as campaign director for Jack Beasley at the 1929 federal election.[1] The following year, he was elected to the Sydney Municipal Council as the alderman for Flinders Ward. He served on the council's committees for works, electricity, and health.[3]
Politics
Early years
Ward was first elected to the House of Representatives at the
Ward lost his seat later that year to the United Australia Party at the federal election. The Labor vote was split between Ward and official ALP candidate George Buckland. On the second count, just over half of Buckland's preferences flowed to UAP candidate John Clasby, allowing Clasby to win. As luck would have it, Clasby died less than a month after the election before he even took his seat in parliament. At the ensuing February 1932 by-election, Ward reclaimed the seat, again as a Lang Labor candidate.
Ward remained in Lang Labor until 1936, when he returned to the ALP. Nevertheless, he would continue to have a prickly relationship with many of his Labor colleagues for the rest of his life.
One such issue that set Ward apart from his parliamentary colleagues was his opposition to any form of defence spending. During the 1936 budget debate, he argued that any funding earmarked for defence would be better spent on welfare and unemployment relief. In reference to a move to increase the size of the Royal Australian Navy, Ward said:
I wonder if such vessels are really needed for the defence of Australia, or whether they are not required for the purpose of helping other peoples defend rich possessions in other parts of the world.
Although in retrospect, Ward's opposition to defence spending appears foolhardy in view of what would occur in the following years, his stance did reflect the thinking of many Australians at the time.
Government minister
In 1941, Ward entered the ministry of new Prime Minister
Following the death of Curtin in 1945, Ward nominated for leadership of the Labor Party, which would have resulted in him becoming Prime Minister, but lost to Ben Chifley. Ward would continue to harbour leadership aspirations throughout the rest of his career. Rarely, if ever, did he have a friendly working relationship with any ALP leader.
After World War II, Ward remained in the spotlight. He vigorously opposed the Bretton Woods system and Australia joining the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction (later one of five institutions in the World Bank Group), because he believed international financiers were responsible for the Depression in Australia during the 1930s. Ward argued that signing Bretton Woods would "enthrone a World Dictatorship of private finance, more complete and terrible than any Hitlerite dream"; destroy Australian democracy; pervert and paganise Christian ideals; and endanger world peace. It was outbursts like these that would continue to stymie his leadership ambitions within the Labor Party.
He was famous for sardonically "welcoming" Menzies back to Australia after his many three-month absences in England at the beginning of each parliamentary year. Ward was the subject of a parliamentary outburst by Menzies (who had apparently drunk too much) during a discussion of the Communist Party Dissolution Bill. Ward often criticised Menzies and in 1944, had called him "a posturing individual with the scowl of a Mussolini, the bombast of a Hitler and the physical proportions of a Göring".[4]
His highest contempt, however, was for those who he considered had betrayed the working class. He refused an invitation to a function celebrating Labor-turned-
Later years
Following the
Arthur Calwell eulogised Ward as an irrepressible fighter and unrelenting hater whilst Curtin had dismissed him as a "bloody ratbag". The journalist Arthur Hoyle believed that many of Ward's generation believed that he was "most authentic voice that the working class in Australia has had".[1]
Notes
- ^ ISSN 1833-7538. Retrieved 6 November 2007.
- JSTOR 27508951.
- ^ "Edward John Ward". Sydney's Aldermen. Retrieved 22 June 2019.
- ^ "Unknown".[permanent dead link]
- ISBN 07270-0942-7.
References
- Eddie Ward: Firebrand of East Sydney, Elwyn Spratt, Rigby, 1965
- Eddie Ward – The Truest Labor Man, Arthur Hoyle, SP, Canberra, 1994