Archibald McDonald Fraser (6 June 1896 – 30 August 1979) was an Australian politician. He was born in

Charters Towers Charters Towers is a rural town in the Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia. It is by road south-west from Townsville on the Flinders Highway. During the last quarter of the 19th century, the town boomed as the rich gold deposits unde ...

to engine driver Archibald Gibson Fraser and Julia Riordan. He grew up in Kalgoorlie and was educated in

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...

, receiving a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

from the

University of Western Australia The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany and various other facilitie ...

. He subsequently studied at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...

, where he received a Bachelor of Law. He was a barrister from 1921. On 18 December 1924 he married Gertrude Mary Prendergast, with whom he had five children. He had joined the Labor Party in 1923, and in 1940 was elected to the

Victorian Legislative Council The Victorian Legislative Council (VLC) is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria, Australia, the lower house being the Legislative Assembly. Both houses sit at Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The Legislative C ...

for

Melbourne North Province Melbourne North Province was an electorate of the Victorian Legislative Council The Victorian Legislative Council (VLC) is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria, Australia, the lower house being the Legislative Assembly. ...

. From 1945 to 1947 he was Assistant Minister of Lands and Water Supply, and from 1952 to 1954 he was Minister of Labour and Mines. In 1954 he resigned from parliament to become a judge on the County Court and chairman of the Victorian Licensing Court. He retired in 1968 and died at

South Yarra South Yarra is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 4 km south-east of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the Cities of City of Melbourne, Melbourne and City of Sto ...

in 1979. His son

Neale Fraser Neale Andrew Fraser (born 3 October 1933) is a former number one amateur male tennis-player from Australia, born in Melbourne, Victoria, the son of a Victorian judge. Fraser is the last man to have completed the triple crown, i.e. having won ...

was a tennis player.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fraser, Archibald 1896 births 1979 deaths Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Victoria Members of the Victorian Legislative Council 20th-century Australian politicians University of Western Australia alumni People educated at Christian Brothers' College, Perth