Arthur Hughes MC (25 October 1885 – 1 February 1968) was an Australian politician. He was born in Broomfield to miner David Solomon Hughes and Esther Vickers. He was a schoolteacher in

Ballarat Ballarat ( ) is a city in the Central Highlands (Victoria), Central Highlands of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 Census, Ballarat had a population of 116,201, making it the third largest city in Victoria. Estimated resid ...

, and during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

served with the Australian Imperial Force in Egypt and France; wounded in 1916, he was invalided home and awarded the

Military Cross The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level pre-1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth countries. The MC i ...

. A Labor Party member, he was active in the campaign against

military conscription Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day und ...

. After the war, he was a soldier settler at

Newlyn Newlyn ( kw, Lulyn: Lu 'fleet', Lynn/Lydn 'pool') is a seaside town and fishing port (the largest fishing port in England) in south-west Cornwall, UK.Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 203 ''Land's End'' Newlyn lies on the shore of Mount ...

, and in 1921 he was elected to the

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

as the Labor member for Grenville. He transferred to Hampden in 1927, but was defeated in 1929. In 1932, he left the Labor Party, feeling that it was insufficiently anti-

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

. Hughes died in Ballarat in 1968.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Arthur 1885 births 1968 deaths Australian Army officers Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Victoria Australian military personnel of World War I Australian Army personnel of World War II Australian recipients of the Military Cross Members of the Victorian Legislative Assembly 20th-century Australian politicians