Lancelot Thomas Spurr (17 March 1897 – 30 May 1965) was an Australian politician. He was an

Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms the f ...

member of the

Australian House of Representatives The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia. The term of members of the ...

from 1939 to 1940 and 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 ...

from 1941 to 1956. He was

Speaker of the Tasmanian House of Assembly The Speaker of the Tasmanian House of Assembly is the presiding officer of the lower house of the Parliament of Tasmania. The role of Speaker has traditionally been a partisan office, filled by the governing party of the time. Speakers of the Ta ...

from 1950 to 1955. Born in Deloraine,

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

, he was educated at

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

schools and became a draper in Deloraine. He operated his own men's and boys' drapery store for many years, moving through several sites in Deloraine until converting the town's delicensed Railway Hotel into a new store in 1940. He was active in local sporting circles, serving as president of the Deloraine Wanderers Football Club and as secretary of the Deloraine Athletic Club. He was also the president of the Deloraine branch of the Labor Party. He unsuccessfully stood for parliament three times - two state and one federal - prior to his eventual election. In 1939, he was elected to the Australian House of Representatives in a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

for the

United Australia Party The United Australia Party (UAP) was an Australian political party that was founded in 1931 and dissolved in 1945. The party won four federal elections in that time, usually governing in coalition with the Country Party. It provided two prim ...

-held seat of

Wilmot Wilmot may refer to: Places Australia *Division of Wilmot, an abolished Australian Electoral Division in Tasmania *Wilmot, Tasmania, a locality in the North-West Region Canada *Wilmot, Nova Scotia, an unincorporated rural community and former to ...

(caused by the death of

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 not ...

Joseph Lyons Joseph Aloysius Lyons (15 September 1879 – 7 April 1939) was an Australian politician who served as the List of prime ministers of Australia by time in office, 10th Prime Minister of Australia, in office from 1932 until his death in 1939. He ...

); Spurr contested the seat for the Labor Party and defeated three UAP candidates (including former MPs Donald Charles Cameron and

Allan Guy James Allan Guy, CBE (30 November 1890 – 16 December 1979) was an Australian politician who represented the Australian Labor Party in both the Tasmanian House of Assembly and the Federal House of Representatives, before leaving to represe ...

) to narrowly take the seat. In the 1940 election, however, Spurr was defeated by Guy. The following year he was elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly, and he served as Speaker from 1950 to 1955, retiring from politics in 1956. He died in 1965.

References

Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Australia Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Tasmania Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Wilmot Members of the Australian House of Representatives Members of the Tasmanian House of Assembly Speakers of the Tasmanian House of Assembly 1897 births 1965 deaths 20th-century Australian politicians People from Deloraine, Tasmania {{Australia-Labor-representative-stub