Benjamin Watkins (26 July 1884 – 23 August 1963) was an Australian politician.

Biography

He was born in

Hobart Hobart ( ; Nuennonne/Palawa kani: ''nipaluna'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Home to almost half of all Tasmanians, it is the least-populated Australian state capital city, and second-small ...

. In 1906 he was elected to the

Tasmanian House of Assembly The House of Assembly, or Lower House, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of Tasmania in Australia. The other is the Legislative Council or Upper House. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Hobart. The Assembly has 25 m ...

as the

Labor 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 ...

member for Queenstown; following the introduction of

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

in 1909 he was elected as one of the members for Darwin. In 1917 he resigned to contest the federal election but was unsuccessful; he returned to the House as a member for

Franklin Franklin may refer to: People * Franklin (given name) * Franklin (surname) * Franklin (class), a member of a historical English social class Places Australia * Franklin, Tasmania, a township * Division of Franklin, federal electoral d ...

in 1919. In 1922 he was defeated and ran for the 1922 federal election unsuccessfully; he returned to the House in 1925, serving until 1934. He was interim leader of the Tasmanian ALP in 1929 when previous leader Joe Lyons resigned to enter federal politics. Watkins relinquished the leadership when Albert Ogilvie was elected the new permanent leader. He left the Labor Party to become an

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

in 1931. Watkins died in 1963 in Hobart.

References

1884 births 1963 deaths Independent members of the Parliament of Tasmania Members of the Tasmanian House of Assembly Politicians from Hobart Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Tasmania 20th-century Australian politicians {{Australia-Labor-politician-stub