Robert Semple (21 October 1873 – 31 January 1955) was a union leader and later Minister of Public Works for the first
Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
Government of New Zealand. He is also known for creating the
Bob Semple tank.
Early life
He was born in
Sofala, New South Wales
Sofala is a village in New South Wales, Australia, north-west of Sydney, within Bathurst Regional Council. It is located beside the Turon River. Sofala is just off the Bathurst-Ilford Road, with only local traffic through the town itself. At th ...
, Australia. He started working at an early age as gold miner in Australia. In 1903 he was involved in a miner's strike in
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
, Australia. The strike was defeated and Semple ended up being blacklisted.
To avoid the blacklist Semple moved to the
West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to:
Geography Australia
* Western Australia
*Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia
* West Coast, Tasmania
**West Coast Range, mountain range in the region
Canada
* Britis ...
of the
South Island
The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...
of New Zealand. By 1907 he was president of the
Runanga Miner's Union and earned himself nickname 'Fighting Bob Semple'.
He was jailed in 1913 for supporting
the general strike
''The General Strike'' is Anti-Flag's ninth studio album. The album was released on March 20, 2012.http://www.anti-flag.com/?p=172 The album marks the band's second release for SideOneDummy Records. The first single from the album, "The Neolibera ...
and again in 1916 after fighting
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 un ...
for overseas service during World War I. Semple served as the President of the Labour Party from 1926 to 1928.
Semple was a member of the
Wellington City Council
Wellington City Council is a territorial authority in New Zealand, governing the country's capital city Wellington, and ''de facto'' second-largest city (if the commonly considered parts of Wellington, the Upper Hutt, Porirua, Lower Hutt and ...
for a decade between 1925 and 1935. In 1935 he unsuccessfully stood for
Mayor of Wellington
The Mayor of Wellington is the head of the municipal government of the City of Wellington. The mayor presides over the Wellington City Council. The mayor is directly elected using the Single Transferable Vote method of proportional representati ...
, coming runner-up to
Thomas Hislop.
His wife
Margaret was also a Wellington City Councillor from 1938 to 1941.
Parliamentary career
Semple was elected to the seat of
Wellington South
Wellington South was a Canadian federal electoral district represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1867 to 1968. It was located in the province of Ontario. It was created by the British North America Act of 1867 as the "South Riding ...
Parliament for Labour in a
1918 by-election, but lost the seat in the
1919 general election. In 1928 he won the
Wellington East seat, and held it until 1946, when it was renamed
Miramar. He then held Miramar until 1954, when he retired.
In 1935, he was awarded the
King George V Silver Jubilee Medal.
Semple was a prolific user of "unparliamentary language" during his time as an MP, and was fond of insulting colleagues by calling or comparing them to Australian animals such as
kookaburra
Kookaburras are terrestrial tree kingfishers of the genus ''Dacelo'' native to Australia and New Guinea, which grow to between in length and weigh around . The name is a loanword from Wiradjuri ''guuguubarra'', onomatopoeic of its call. The ...
s,
kangaroo
Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern ...
s and
dingo
The dingo (''Canis familiaris'', ''Canis familiaris dingo'', ''Canis dingo'', or ''Canis lupus dingo'') is an ancient (Basal (phylogenetics), basal) lineage of dog found in Australia (continent), Australia. Its taxonomic classification is de ...
es.
During his term in Parliament, Semple held many important infrastructure portfolios, such as
Minister of Public Works
This list indicates government departments in various countries dedicated to public works or infrastructure.
See also
* Public works
* Ministry or Board of Public Works, the imperial Chinese ministry overseeing public projects from the Tang ...
(1935–1941, 1942–1943) and
Minister of Railways
A Ministry of Railways is a Cabinet department that exists or has existed in many Commonwealth states as well as others. It generally occurs in countries where railroad transportation is a particularly important part of the national infrastructur ...
(1941–1949). Semple was seen by many as the public face of the
first Labour government's infrastructure investment. He reshaped the Public Works Department by resuming its original function as the development arm of the government by phasing out its focus on relief work from the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
.
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
he had built the '
Bob Semple tank', made from
corrugated iron
Corrugated galvanised iron or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America) and occasionally abbreviated CGI is a ...
and a tractor base. The tank had numerous design flaws and other practical problems and was never put into production. In later life, he became an ardent anti-communist.
He did not seek re-election in the
1954 election, and died in New Plymouth in January 1955.
Notes
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Semple, Bob
1873 births
1955 deaths
New Zealand Labour Party MPs
People from the Central West (New South Wales)
Australian emigrants to New Zealand
Members of the Cabinet of New Zealand
New Zealand trade unionists
New Zealand conscientious objectors
Members of the New Zealand House of Representatives
New Zealand MPs for Wellington electorates
Unsuccessful candidates in the 1919 New Zealand general election
Unsuccessful candidates in the 1925 New Zealand general election
New Zealand politicians convicted of crimes
Social Democratic Party (New Zealand) politicians
Wellington City Councillors
New Zealand Socialist Party politicians
Wellington Harbour Board members
New Zealand anti–World War I activists
Industrial Workers of the World members