James Chester Manifold (10 February 1867 – 30 October 1918) was an Australian politician and

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...

Early life

Manifold was born in

Camperdown, Victoria Camperdown () is a town in southwestern Victoria, Australia, west of the state capital, Melbourne. At the 2016 census, Camperdown had a population of 3,369. History The Djargurd Wurrung people were the traditional Aboriginal people of the Ca ...

, attended

Geelong Grammar School , motto_translation = 1 Corinthians 1:30: "For us, Christ was made wisdom"(1 Corinthians 1:30: Christ, who has been made for us in wisdom) , city = Corio, Victoria , country = Australia , coordinates = , ty ...

, and went to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

with his family in 1881. However, the family returned to Australia because the northern climate did not agree with his health, and he subsequently attended

Melbourne Church of England Grammar School Melbourne Grammar School is an Australian Independent school, independent Anglican Church of Australia, Anglican Day school, day and boarding school. It comprises a co-educational preparatory school from Prep to Year 6 and a middle school and seni ...

. When he came into possession of a property left to him by his father, he mostly rented it to dairy farmers, to whom he later sold the land on liberal terms. He was a director of the Camperdown Cheese and Butter Factory, established in 1891, and was its chairman after 1907. He was a member of Hampden Shire Council in the 1890s, being its president twice. On 11 March 1891, he married Lilian Eva Curle.

Federal politics

Manifold was elected to 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 ...

in 1901 as the inaugural member for Corangamite, representing the

Protectionist Party The Protectionist Party or Liberal Protectionist Party was an Australian political party, formally organised from 1887 until 1909, with policies centred on protectionism. The party advocated protective tariffs, arguing it would allow Australi ...

. He retired in 1903 due to ill health, but in 1913 was persuaded to oppose the sitting

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, future

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 ...

James Scullin James Henry Scullin (18 September 1876 – 28 January 1953) was an Australian Labor Party politician and the ninth Prime Minister of Australia. Scullin led Labor to government at the 1929 Australian federal election. He was the first Catho ...

, representing the

Commonwealth Liberal Party The Liberal Party was a parliamentary party in Australian federal politics between 1909 and 1917. The party was founded under Alfred Deakin's leadership as a merger of the Protectionist Party and Anti-Socialist Party, an event known as the Fu ...

. He defeated Scullin in the election of that year, and held the seat until his unexpected death from

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on 30 October 1918, during a voyage to

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. He was buried at sea, and was survived by a son and a daughter. In 1921, a statue of Manifold by Nelson Illingworth was unveiled at Camperdown by Prime Minister

Stanley Bruce Stanley Melbourne Bruce, 1st Viscount Bruce of Melbourne, (15 April 1883 – 25 August 1967) was an Australian politician who served as the eighth prime minister of Australia from 1923 to 1929, as leader of the Nationalist Party. Born ...

. His son, Sir Thomas Chester Manifold, was a member of the

Victorian Legislative Assembly The Victorian Legislative Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria in Australia; the upper house being the Victorian Legislative Council. Both houses sit at Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The presiding ...

from 1929 to 1935, representing the

electoral district of Hampden Hampden was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Victoria from 1904 until its abolition in 1976. Most of the territory located in the old division of Hampden was transferred into the re-created electorat ...

for the Nationalist Party and later 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 ...

.http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/re-member/bioregfull.cfm?mid=1310, Parliament of Victoria - Retrieved 2011-01-03

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Manifold, Chester 1867 births 1918 deaths Protectionist Party members of the Parliament of Australia Commonwealth Liberal Party members of the Parliament of Australia Nationalist Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Australia Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Corangamite 20th-century Australian politicians People educated at Geelong Grammar School