Walter Alan Woods (28 December 1861 – 28 February 1939) was an Australian Labor politician and journalist. He was born Walter William Head at

Oakleigh, Victoria Oakleigh is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 14 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Monash local government area. Oakleigh recorded a population of 8,442 at the 2021 census. Once ...

on 28 December 1861. He later used various names throughout his life.

Parliamentary career

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 ...

for North Hobart, representing the Labor Party; with 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 Denison. He served as Speaker of the House from 1914 to 1916. In 1917 he resigned to contest the Senate

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

but was unsuccessful. Re-elected to the House in 1925, he was re-appointed Speaker in 1926, serving until 1928. Woods was defeated in 1931 and died in 1939 at Hobart.

Journalist career

In 1891 he was one of the founders of the Labor newspaper ''The Hummer'', a forerunner of ''

The Australian Worker ''The Australian Worker'' was a newspaper produced in Sydney, New South Wales for the Australian Workers' Union. It was published from 1890 to 1950. History The newspaper had its origin in ''The Hummer'', "Official organ of the Associated Ri ...

.'' On moving to Launceston in 1895, he was editor of ''The Tasmanian Democrat'', then moved to Hobart and took over the editorship of ''

The Clipper ''The Clipper'' was a weekly labor-orientated newspaper published in Hobart, Tasmania, from 8 April 1893 until 25 December 1909, before its merger with the '' Daily Post'' in 1910. History Its first editor was James Paton, a Christian sociali ...

'', which he transformed into a Labor publication. He also wrote, as "John Drayman", several

bush ballad The bush ballad, bush song or bush poem is a style of poetry and folk music that depicts the life, character and scenery of the Australian bush. The typical bush ballad employs a straightforward rhyme structure to narrate a story, often one of ...

s, the best known being ''I Don't Go Shearing Now''.Marilyn Lake, 'Woods, Walter Alan (1861–1939)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/woods-walter-alan-9180/text16211, published first in hardcopy 1990, accessed online 17 March 2015.

References

1861 births 1939 deaths Members of the Tasmanian House of Assembly Speakers of the Tasmanian House of Assembly Politicians from Melbourne Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Tasmania People from Mulgrave, Victoria Australian newspaper editors 20th-century Australian politicians 19th-century Australian journalists {{Australia-Labor-politician-stub