Edmund Dwyer-Gray
Edmund Dwyer-Gray | |
---|---|
Denison | |
In office 30 May 1928 – 6 December 1945 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Edmund John Chisholm Dwyer Gray 2 April 1870 Edmund Dwyer Gray (father) |
Occupation | Newspaper editor |
Edmund John Chisholm Dwyer-Gray (2 April 1870 – 6 December 1945) was an Irish-Australian politician, who was the 29th
Early life
He was born Edmund John Chisholm Dwyer Gray on 2 April 1870 in
Newspaper editorship and emigration to Australia
Gray first visited Australia in 1887, as he was suffering from rheumatism and hoped the climate might improve his health. He returned to Ireland shortly afterwards and joined the editorial committee of the Freeman's Journal, a nationalist newspaper of which his father and grandfather had been proprietors.[1]
Between visits to Australia where he met and married his wife Clara, Gray continued to work on the Freeman's Journal which became involved in the Irish political scandal and leadership crisis when Charles Stewart Parnell married a divorced woman. Despite his family's support for Parnell, Gray altered the Journal's policy to compete with an anti-Parnell paper, causing some controversy and contributing to his decision to migrate to Australia permanently.[1]
After some travel in Australia,
Tasmanian politics
Gray unsuccessfully stood for the
As both Treasurer and editor of Voice, Dwyer-Gray was a proponent of the social credit concept pioneered by C. H. Douglas. He had visited New Zealand, which he saw as an ideal model and precedent for Tasmania's economy and society—a "worker's paradise" as he referred to it—should the Douglasite concept of national credit be adopted.[3]
Albert Ogilvie died of a heart attack in office on 10 June 1939, and on 6 July Dwyer-Gray was elected as leader of the ALP, and hence officially became Premier of Tasmania, although only for six months due to an arrangement with fellow MHA Robert Cosgrove that he would stand aside for Cosgrove to assume the premiership in December 1939.[1]
Later life and legacy
In 1940, he wrote an article in Voice praising Adelaide
Dwyer-Gray died in Hobart on 6 December 1945, survived by his wife, who died in 1947.
Although his ideas were radical for the time, Dwyer-Gray's insistent lobbying of Tasmanian-born Prime Minister Joseph Lyons to permanently solve the funding problem for small states like Tasmania enabled him as treasurer to bring post-Depression financial security to the state. While criticising Lyons' establishment of the Commonwealth Grants Commission in The Voice, Dwyer-Gray nonetheless gained favourable treatment for Tasmania, "bringing home the bacon" that allowed Cosgrove to fund public health, the public service and hydroelectric development.[5]
References
- ^ Melbourne University Press, 1981, pp 390–391.
- ^ Davis, Richard. "Labor newspapers". The Companion to Tasmanian History. University of Tasmania. Archived from the original on 2 May 2019. Retrieved 30 November 2019.
- ^ David, Richard (1 October 1996). "New Zealand Labour Government and the ALP, 1939–40: an Image of Independence". University of Tasmania. Archived from the original on 19 September 2007.
- ^ "Adelaide's "Wonder-Man"". Voice. Vol. 13, no. 10. Tasmania, Australia. 9 March 1940. p. 5. Archived from the original on 27 September 2021. Retrieved 29 November 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
- ^ Bartlett, David: Inaugural speech Archived 30 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine, Parliament of Tasmania, 20 April 2004.
External links
- "Edmund Dwyer-Gray". Members of the Parliament of Tasmania. Retrieved 24 July 2022.