Miles Staniforth Cater Smith, (25 February 1869 – 14 January 1934) was an Australian politician, public servant and explorer. He served as a

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

for Western Australia from 1901 to 1906 and was later a senior public servant in the Territory of Papua and the Northern Territory of Australia.

Early life

Smith was born on 25 February 1869 in

Kingston, Victoria Kingston is a small town and locality of 19.07km2 in the rural Shire of Hepburn in Victoria, Australia, located just off the Midland Highway about 10 kilometres distance from Creswick, and is about 20 km from Daylesford. Kingston's post code ...

. He was the son of English immigrants Margaret Gomersall () and William John Smith. He was raised on his father's farming property and attended St Arnaud Grammar School in St Arnaud. He briefly studied engineering at the University of Melbourne and then began working for Goldsbrough Mort & Co in Melbourne. In 1896, Smith moved to the

Eastern Goldfields The Eastern Goldfields is part of the Western Australian Goldfields in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, covering the present and former gold-mining area east of Perth. Extent and name origin The region encompasses the town ...

of Western Australia where he initially worked as a bookkeeper for C. R. Knight and Company in Coolgardie. He subsequently moved to

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 includ ...

where he was employed by Reuters Telegram Company and was a member of the West Kalgoorlie Progress Committee. He was elected to the Kalgoorlie Municipal Council in 1898 and served as mayor of Kalgoorlie from 1900 to 1901.

Politics

Smith supported the federation movement and was elected to the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

at the inaugural 1901 federal election, winning the most votes of any candidate in Western Australia. He joined the

Free Trade Party The Free Trade Party which was officially known as the Australian Free Trade and Liberal Association, also referred to as the Revenue Tariff Party in some states, was an Australian political party, formally organised in 1887 in New South Wales, ...

but supported

Chris Watson John Christian Watson (born Johan Cristian Tanck; 9 April 186718 November 1941) was an Australian politician who served as the third prime minister of Australia, in office from 27 April to 18 August 1904. He served as the inaugural federal lead ...

's Australian Labor Party (ALP) government in 1904. According to

Brian De Garis Brian De Garis is a Western Australian historian. He edited a number of important texts about Western Australian history. His Masters thesis was about Sir Hal Colebatch. His doctoral thesis entitle''British influence on the federation of the Aust ...

, he sat "in opposition to the Barton and later Deakin governments, although he was sympathetic to much of the nation-building legislation, and indeed veered at times towards protectionist policies".

Public service

He then became involved in Government Service in Papua, where in 1907 he was appointed Director of Agriculture and Mines. In 1910–11, he led an expedition into the interior, where he and his party were lost and feared dead for several weeks. Rescued with much publicity, he was hailed as an explorer and in 1923 awarded the Patron's Medal of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

During the First World War he served in the military from 1916 to 1918, for which he was awarded an

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

. On his return to Australia he briefly served as acting Administrator of the Northern Territory for 1919–1921, before resuming his involvement with Papua as Commissioner for Crown Lands, Mines and Agriculture.

Later life

After retiring from government service in 1930, he took up farming at Boyup Brook in Western Australia, where he died in 1934.

Memory

The Staniforth mountain range is named after him due to role he played in the passing of the

Papua Act 1905 The ''Papua Act 1905'' was an act passed by the Parliament of Australia to transfer the territory of Papua from Britain to Australia. The long title of the Act was: ''An Act to provide for the acceptance of British New Guinea as a Territory un ...

which saw the transfer of the territory of Papua from Britain to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

References

External links

Australian Dictionary of Biography