John Scaddan,
CMG
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Companies
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* ...
(4 August 1876 – 21 November 1934), popularly known as "Happy Jack", was
Premier of Western Australia
The premier of Western Australia is the head of government of the state of Western Australia. The role of premier at a state level is similar to the role of the prime minister of Australia at a federal level. The premier leads the executive br ...
from 7 October 1911 until 27 July 1916.
Early life
John Scaddan was born in Moonta, South Australia, into a
Cornish Australian
Cornish Australians ( kw, Ostralians kernewek) are citizens of Australia who are fully or partially of Cornish heritage or descent, an ethnic group native to Cornwall in the United Kingdom.
Cornish Australians form part of the worldwide Co ...
family.
He was educated at the state schools in
Woodside
Woodside may refer to:
Places and buildings Australia
*Woodside, South Australia, a town
*Woodside, Victoria, a town
Canada
*Woodside National Historic Site, the boyhood home of William Lyon Mackenzie King
*Woodside, Nova Scotia, a neighborho ...
and
Eaglehawk, Victoria, Australia.
From the age of thirteen he worked in the mines at Eaglehawk, while continuing his schooling part-time at the
Bendigo School of Mines and Industries The Bendigo School of Mines was established in Bendigo, Australia in 1873 to provide technical education, predominantly for the mining industry.
It was then known as the ''Bendigo School of Mines and Industries'' from 1883 to 1959, ''Bendigo Techni ...
. He worked in the area until 1896, when he came to Western Australia, probably as part of the gold rush to the
Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is sometimes referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder, as the surrounding urban area inclu ...
goldfields. Scaddan initially worked underground as a miner, but after gaining his engine-driver's certificate, he operated a stationary engine at the pit head. In 1900, Scaddan married Elizabeth Fauckner (or Fawkner)
[J. R. Robertson,]
Scaddan, John (1876-1934)
, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 11, Melbourne University Press, 1988, pp 526-529 in
Boulder
In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive.
In ...
, who died from
Bright's disease
Bright's disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that are described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis. It was characterized by swelling and the presence of albumin in the urine, and was frequently accompanie ...
on 21 September 1902, and in 1904 he married Henrietta Edwards.
Labor politics
Scaddan became a keen unionist, and on 28 June 1904 he contested the
Western Australian Legislative Assembly
The Western Australian Legislative Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of Western Australia, an Australian state. The Parliament sits in Parliament House in the Western Australian capital, Perth.
The Legislat ...
seat of
Ivanhoe
''Ivanhoe: A Romance'' () by Walter Scott is a historical novel published in three volumes, in 1819, as one of the Waverley novels. Set in England in the Middle Ages, this novel marked a shift away from Scott’s prior practice of setting st ...
, partly because he was having difficulty securing continuous employment, and partly also because of an interest in economic affairs. He easily won the seat for the
Labor Party, but was not invited to be a minister in
Henry Daglish's 1904-05 government. This would later be to his advantage, as a number of his rivals within the Labor party suffered from their association with the unsuccessful
Daglish ministry.
Scaddan was re-elected unopposed in the election of October 1905, and for the next four years served as party secretary. On the retirement of party leader
Thomas Bath
Thomas Henry Bath, CBE (21 February 1875 – 6 November 1956) was an Australian politician, trade unionist, newspaper editor, writer, and cooperativist. A member of the Labor Party, he served as a Member of the Western Australian Legislative A ...
in August 1910, Scaddan became leader of the Labor Party, and thus also
Leader of the Opposition
The Leader of the Opposition is a title traditionally held by the leader of the largest political party not in government, typical in countries utilizing the parliamentary system form of government. The leader of the opposition is typically se ...
. In the election of October 1911, Labor campaigned on a wide-ranging and radical platform. Scaddan easily won his seat, which had been renamed
Brown Hill-Ivanhoe after a redistribution. The Labor party won an overwhelming majority, and on 7 October 1911 Scaddan became
Premier of Western Australia
The premier of Western Australia is the head of government of the state of Western Australia. The role of premier at a state level is similar to the role of the prime minister of Australia at a federal level. The premier leads the executive br ...
. At just 35 years of age, he remains the youngest ever premier of Western Australia.
Premier
Scaddan led a vigorous, radical, reforming government. In 1911, it passed the Workers' Homes Act, which made it easier for lowly paid workers to own their homes. In 1912, the jurisdiction of the
Arbitration Court
Arbitration is a form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) that resolves disputes outside the judiciary courts. The dispute will be decided by one or more persons (the 'arbitrators', 'arbiters' or ' arbitral tribunal'), which renders th ...
was expanded;
Thomas Walker was Minister for Justice and Education, and
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general.
In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
.
Workers' compensation
Workers' compensation or workers' comp is a form of insurance providing wage replacement and medical benefits to employees injured in the course of employment in exchange for mandatory relinquishment of the employee's right to sue his or her emp ...
provisions were greatly extended. The government also spent heavily on development of the
Wheatbelt, especially in the construction of
railway
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in Track (rail transport), tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the ...
s. Railway construction was increased, while farmers settling in the eastern wheat belt were provided with assistance in the form of liberalized lending arrangements, technical expertise, and new railways to transport the greatly increased production that took place as a result. Workers were also helped by extensions to the arbitration system. In addition, land taxation was increased, a graduated income tax was introduced, and considerable reforms were carried out in the fields of divorce, criminal law, irrigation, and education.
Scaddan's government is perhaps most remembered for its policy of setting up state owned enterprises, termed ''state socialism'' by Scaddan, although it was not really
state socialism. Scaddan's government became involved in numerous industries: it established a state shipping service; started a
dairy
A dairy is a business enterprise established for the harvesting or processing (or both) of animal milk – mostly from cows or buffaloes, but also from goats, sheep, horses, or camels – for human consumption. A dairy is typically located on ...
farm at
Claremont Claremont may refer to:
Places Australia
*Claremont, Ipswich, a heritage-listed house in Queensland
* Claremont, Tasmania, a suburb of Hobart
* Claremont, Western Australia, a suburb of Perth
** Claremont Football Club, West Australian Footba ...
and a
sawmill
A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...
at
Manjimup; reopened a
quarry
A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...
at
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* Pierre Boya (born 1984), Cameroonian footballer ...
; set up a
brickworks and an
agricultural
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peopl ...
implement works; took over the
South Perth ferries
A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...
and
Perth
Perth is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the Australian states and territories of Australia, state of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth most populous city in Aust ...
's
tram
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport ...
s; started up
abattoir
A slaughterhouse, also called abattoir (), is a facility where animals are Animal slaughter, slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a Meat packing industry, packaging facility.
Slaug ...
s; and even purchased hotels.
To help finance its policies, Scaddan's government introduced an
income tax
An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Tax ...
in 1912, and this was greatly increased after
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
broke out. It also borrowed heavily, and state
debt
Debt is an obligation that requires one party, the debtor, to pay money or other agreed-upon value to another party, the creditor. Debt is a deferred payment, or series of payments, which differentiates it from an immediate purchase. The d ...
increased as much in Scaddan's five years as it had in the previous 13 years.
Scaddan's many reforms were achieved despite constant obstruction from the
Legislative Council. The government won only a third of all divisions in the Legislative Council, and this is in stark contrast to treatment of the
Wilson governments before and after Scaddan's government, who never lost a single bill in the upper house.
Scaddan's government was returned in the election of 1914, but with a majority of only two. This small majority, along with the outbreak of war in 1914 and the onset of one of the worst
drought
A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...
s ever to hit Western Australia, severely restricted Scaddan's policy in his second term. The government's position was made even more unstable when, in January 1915, the Labor MLA for
Roebourne,
Joseph Gardiner, walked out of Parliament House, and did not return. He subsequently left the state altogether, and in September 1915 his seat was declared vacant for non-attendance. Labor lost the resulting by-election in November, leaving it with exactly half of the seats in parliament. Meanwhile,
Bertie Johnston
Edward Bertram Johnston (11 January 1880 – 6 September 1942), known as Bertie Johnston, was the Western Australian Legislative Assembly member for Williams-Narrogin from 1911 to 1928, and a Senator from 1929 until 1942. His resignation fr ...
, Labor's only member for a farming seat, had voted with the opposition several times in reaction to Scaddan's failure to fulfill a promise to reduce the price of crown land. Eventually, Johnston resigned from the party and from parliament over the
Nevanas affair, and was subsequently re-elected as an independent in January 1916. This left the Labor government with a minority of seats, and in July 1916 the Liberal and Country parties cooperated to defeat the government. Scaddan then asked the Governor Sir
Harry Barron for a dissolution of parliament, but was refused. Scaddan resigned as premier on 27 July 1916, and Liberal leader
Frank Wilson took office.
Scaddan remained Labor leader after his defeat. On 8 August 1916, he resigned his seat of Brown Hill-Ivanhoe to contest the
seat of Canning at a ministerial by-election. He failed to win the seat, but the Labor member who had won Brown Hill-Ivanhoe,
John Lutey, resigned it before being sworn in, and Scaddan was re-elected to Brown Hill-Ivanhoe on 7 October 1916.
Non-Labor politics
On regaining his seat, Scaddan resumed as
Leader of the Opposition
The Leader of the Opposition is a title traditionally held by the leader of the largest political party not in government, typical in countries utilizing the parliamentary system form of government. The leader of the opposition is typically se ...
. However, the federal Labor Party
split in 1916 over the issue of
conscription, and it was inevitable that this would eventually affect the Western Australian branch. The federal Labor Party had expelled all supporters of conscription from the party, including
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
Billy Hughes
William Morris Hughes (25 September 1862 – 28 October 1952) was an Australian politician who served as the seventh prime minister of Australia, in office from 1915 to 1923. He is best known for leading the country Military history of Austra ...
, and Hughes had responded by forming a
Nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
government. As a conscriptionist, Scaddan had supported Hughes. With the May 1917 elections approaching, Scaddan found himself in the untenable position of supporting the non-Labor Prime Minister Hughes instead of the Labor Party leader
Frank Tudor. On about 10 April 1917, Scaddan resigned from the Australian Labor Party.
In the meantime, Wilson's government had been having difficulty maintaining parliamentary support. Hughes' Nationalist government had won a landslide victory at the federal level, and Wilson found himself under pressure to form a Nationalist government at the state level. A Nationalist Party was eventually formed, but Wilson was overlooked in favour of
Henry Lefroy. Scaddan was appointed Minister for Mines and Railways in Lefroy's Nationalist government on 28 June 1917, but Lutey defeated him in the ministerial by-election. In September 1917, Scaddan contested
Albany as the National Labor candidate, but was again defeated.
On 17 May 1919, Scaddan was appointed Colonial Secretary and Minister for Railways in
James Mitchell's government, despite not being a member of either house of parliament. Two weeks later he won the Legislative Assembly
seat of Albany as a Nationalist. On 25 June 1919, Mitchell reshuffled his government's portfolios, and Scaddan was appointed Minister for Mines, Industries, Forests and Police; and Minister for Railways. He held these portfolios until the general election of March 1924, which he did not contest. He was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1923.
Scaddan unsuccessfully contested the
seat of Leederville in the general elections of March 1927. He won the
seat of Maylands in the election of May 1930, upon which he was appointed Minister for Railways, Mines, Police, Forests and Industry in the Mitchell government. In the April 1933 general elections, Scaddan lost his seat and the Mitchell government was defeated.
Later life
From 1927 on, Scaddan worked as a stock, farm and estate agent. He was a member of the Perth Roads Board from 1926, and its chairman from 1931 to 1934. He died suddenly on 21 November 1934, and was buried at
Karrakatta Cemetery
Karrakatta Cemetery is a metropolitan cemetery in the suburb of Karrakatta in Perth, Western Australia. Karrakatta Cemetery first opened for burials in 1899, the first being that of wheelwright Robert Creighton. Managed by the Metropolitan Ce ...
.
[Written by Cara Scaddan Cox, based on Personal information over many years from my father Thomas Scaddan; Scrap Book of John Scaddan, comprising Eight Volumes of Books, compiled over time by the Secretary to Hon. John Scaddan. Name unknown.]
Locality names
The town of
Scaddan located along the
Esperance Branch Railway
The Esperance Branch Railway is a railway from Kalgoorlie to the port of Esperance in Western Australia.
It was lobbied for by Esperance residents to be linked into the WAGR railway network to provide land transport to their region.
In t ...
in the
Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia is named after John Scaddan.
Notes
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Scaddan, John
1876 births
1934 deaths
Australian people of Cornish descent
Burials at Karrakatta Cemetery
Colonial Secretaries of Western Australia
Leaders of the Opposition in Western Australia
Mayors of places in Western Australia
Members of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly
Nationalist Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Western Australia
Premiers of Western Australia
Australian Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George
Subiaco Football Club administrators
Treasurers of Western Australia
Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Western Australia
People from Moonta, South Australia
National Labor Party members of the Parliament of Western Australia
Western Australian local councillors