Alfred Deakin

Prime minister of Australia (1903-1904, 1905-1908, 1909-1910)

• Born: August 3, 1856
• Birthplace: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
• Died: October 7, 1919
• Place of death: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

After serving a ten-year apprenticeship in Victoria’s legislative assembly, Deakin spent the last decade of the nineteenth century working toward the federation of the Australian colonies. One of the primary founders of the Commonwealth of Australia, he served three times as prime minister, dominating the government during its first, formative decade.

Early Life

Alfred Deakin (dee-kihn) was born when Australia was still a collection of autonomous British colonies. His Welsh-born mother, née Sarah Bill, and his father, William Deakin, an English salesclerk, arrived in South Australia from England in December, 1849. After following the gold rush to Victoria (1851), they eventually settled in the Melbourne suburb of Collingwood, where their second child, Alfred, was born.

Educated primarily at Melbourne’s Church of EnglandGrammar School, as a young adult Alfred Deakin attended lectures in law at the University of Melbourne at night. His father’s income as accountant with a big coaching company being modest, Deakin supported himself, partly by teaching, while qualifying for the bar and pursuing a deep and continuing interest in mysticism, religion, and psychic phenomena (in 1878 serving as president of the Victorian Association of Spiritualists) and a love of literature and writing. These interests introduced him to his true vocation and to his future wife.

Through David Syme, the powerful proprietor of the Melbourne Age, to whose newspaper he became a regular contributor, Deakin entered a political career, almost by chance. When the incumbent of the seat of West Bourke died during a constitutional crisis, Syme pushed Deakin forward, and in July, 1880, he took his place in Victoria’s legislative assembly with the governing Liberal Party, an alliance of farming, manufacturing, and labor interests. His talents as a conciliator soon became evident: He helped to secure the Council Reform Act of 1881 and by 1883 was minister in a coalition government of Liberals and Conservatives.

Deakin was a tall, handsome man, fully bearded with dark hair and eyes and a rich voice that he used effectively as an outstanding orator and debater. On April 3, 1882, he married Pattie (christened Elizabeth Martha Anne) Browne, the daughter of a wealthy distiller and spiritualist; she had once been Deakin’s pupil at the Progressive Lyceum, a spiritualist Sunday school conducted on American lines. The first of their three children, all girls, was born the following year.

At thirty, Deakin became leader of the Liberal Party and so, with Conservative Duncan Gillies, joint leader of the government. He headed the Victorian delegation to the Colonial Conference of 1887 in London, making his mark in an outspoken attack on the Colonial Office. His speech foreshadowed the federation of the Australian colonies, an objective to which he was to devote much of his time after the fall of the coalition government in October, 1890.

Life’s Work

Alfred Deakin’s experience as a conciliator and a leader in the Victorian parliament served him well from the time he supported the proposal put by Sir Henry Parkes, the great federationist from New South Wales, that a national Australian convention be held in Sydney in 1891, until the inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia ten years later, and beyond.

After the drafting at the 1891 convention of a constitution modeled chiefly on the British North America Act and the U.S. Constitution, nothing much happened for a time. Deakin resumed the practice of law and attended parliamentary sessions, resisting suggestions that he again take a leadership role. During 1897 and 1898, however, the Federal Convention met at Adelaide, Sydney, and Melbourne under the leadership of Edmund Barton of New South Wales (Parkes having died).

The only member of the Victorian delegation who had also taken part in the 1891 convention, Deakin again took on the role of arbitrator while a new constitution bill was being framed. The next step was to present it to the people in referenda to be held in all the colonies. Determined to gain its adoption in Victoria, where strong forces appeared to be rallying in opposition, Deakin campaigned vigorously. His historic speech at Bendigo on March 15, 1898, at the annual conference of the influential Australian Natives Association, is regarded as one of his greatest, winning over Syme and impressing reluctant members of government. Victoria voted overwhelmingly (100,520 to 21,099) for the bill.

In 1900, Deakin went to London as part of an Australian delegation headed by Barton. Agreement on the constitution finally having been reached in Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales, South Australia, and Queensland (Western Australia had not yet held a referendum), the Australian colonies had been requested to be represented while the act constituting the Commonwealth of Australia was being passed by the British parliament.

Barton became the first prime minister of Australia the following year, with Deakin’s full support. The cabinet, established on lines proposed by Deakin, included his friend and ally as attorney general. Early legislation included a uniform tariff and the exclusion of non-European immigrants (the “white Australia” policy). On the passing of the Judiciary Act of 1903, setting up the High Court of Australia, Barton retired and was appointed one of the three justices. At forty-seven, “Affable” Alfred, the member for Ballarat (Victoria), became prime minister and minister for external affairs on September 24, 1903.

At this time, three parties were represented in the parliament: Deakin and the Liberal-Protectionists; Labor, led by John C. Watson; and the Free Traders, whose leader was Sir George Reid, former premier of New South Wales and a reluctant federationist. Barton had received Labor’s support, and Deakin also felt more comfortable working with Watson than with Reid.

In April, 1904, a dispute over an arbitration bill started a game of musical chairs. Deakin went out of office and Watson came in, with William M. Hughes as his minister for external affairs. Within a matter of months it was Reid’s turn. Deakin started his second term, which was considered a productive ministry, on July 15, 1905, although after the 1906 elections his party was the smallest of the three. Usually, therefore, only measures supported by all—such as the introduction of old-age pensions—were likely to be accepted.

Foreign affairs and defense were areas of great concern to Deakin from the time of the 1887 Colonial Conference—at which he raised the issue of French involvement in the New Hebrides. The Naval Agreement made then did not please him, nor did the revised agreement of 1902, under which Australia paid a subsidy to the imperial government toward the cost of maintaining the Australian Station of the Royal Navy. He foresaw Australian seamen becoming members of a squadron under local control, manning Australian-owned ships and with their wages being paid by Australia. His defense bill foreshadowed this, as well as universal military service and a military college, but in November, 1908, his government fell before the bill could become law.

Labor’s second term (under Andrew Fisher) was almost as brief as its first. On June 2, 1909, Deakin was sworn in for his third term, this time as head of what was called the Fusion Ministry, an alliance of groups opposed to Labor. Deakin’s personal reputation suffered from this decision to work with some of his hitherto political opponents, however, and in April, 1910, Labor won a decisive victory in both houses. His domination of Parliament had ended.

Deakin had no personal fortune. His income came mainly from what he earned as lawyer, journalist, and parliamentarian. From the 1890’s onward, the family spent the summer holidays at Point Lonsdale, a small settlement near Melbourne on Port Phillip Bay, where Deakin would read, write, and swim. Abstemious and family-minded, Deakin was accompanied by his wife and baby daughter to California in 1884, and in 1900 his wife Pattie, his beloved sister Kate, and his three daughters (Ivy, Stella, and Vera) went with him to London. Pattie also (rather reluctantly) traveled with him to London for the Colonial Conference of 1907.

Like many brilliant, hardworking men, Deakin found relaxing difficult; he also suffered from insomnia. His health began to deteriorate after he entered the Commonwealth parliament, and from 1907 on, memory lapses caused him increasing distress. Deakin was a very private person, and his innermost thoughts were revealed only to his diary and notebooks, in which he also recorded hundreds of prayers. He retired from Parliament in January, 1913, broken in health, which was never restored despite visits to medical specialists in London and New York. He died on October 7, 1919.

Significance

Of his time in the Victorian parliament, Alfred Deakin liked to recall that he introduced pioneering social legislation (the Factories and Shop Act of 1885) regulating factory working conditions. A greater and more personal achievement, however, when he was the minister of watersupply, was the Irrigation Act (1886). This came out of a commission on droughts that he chaired and that resulted in water rights being transferred to the Crown to avoid ownership disputes similar to those prevalent in the United States. Irrigation in Western America (1885) reports the findings of a visit to the United States during which he met the Canadian-born Chaffey brothers, irrigation experts whom he later enticed to Victoria to establish a settlement at Mildura modeled on theirs at Ontario, California.

A consummate politician, Deakin’s support was sought by men of all political factions, yet when he acted independently he took full responsibility and was even, at times, ruthless. As the minister in charge, in 1890 he called out the police and troops during a time of strikes and industrial unrest in Victoria. He did not hesitate when Labor was no longer prepared to give him unconditional support to make an arrangement with the Free Traders and then to drop them if they did not fulfill their commitments. Many of his policies were endorsed or adopted because they were appropriate for the times. One of his last official acts as prime minister was to place an order for three vessels for the Australian Navy, thus contributing greatly to Australia’s readiness in 1914 when World War I began.

Alfred Deakin was also a sensitive man, more interested in intellectual and philosophical pursuits than many of his countrymen. He saw Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa remaining in the British Empire as equal partners with Great Britain, their interests being one and the same. More than once he referred to himself as an “Independent Australian Briton.” Although an imperialist, Deakin declined offers of honors and knighthoods and lived simply, preferring to walk or ride a bicycle from his house in South Yarra to Parliament House, which until 1927 was in Melbourne. His fine intellect and political achievements won respect at home and abroad. Theodore Roosevelt, who ordered the “Great White Fleet” (sixteen American battleships showing the flag around the world) to call at Australian ports in 1908 at Deakin’s personal request, wrote in 1912, “He is one of the statesmen for whom I have long cherished a very sincere and real admiration.” A university in Victoria bears his name.

Bibliography

Deakin, Alfred. The Federal Story: The Inner History of the Federal Cause. Melbourne, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 1963. First published with some omissions in 1944, this is a valuable primary document on events leading to federation. Includes an introduction by J. A. La Nauze.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Federated Australia: Selections from Letters to the “Morning Post,” 1900-1910. Edited by J. A. La Nauze. Melbourne, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 1968. From 1900 until 1914, Deakin, identified only as “Australian Correspondent,” wrote regularly on Australian affairs for the London Morning Post. His letters provide an excellent firsthand account of events during the Commonwealth’s first decade.

Gabay, Al. The Mystic Life of Alfred Deakin. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Deakin was convinced his political life had a divine mandate and he turned to mysticism and the occult to help him understand his duty. Gabay describes Deakin’s intense spiritual life and how it related to his public career.

La Nauze, J. A. Alfred Deakin: A Biography. 2 vols. Melbourne, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 1965. A scholarly study, with references and bibliography, written by a protégé of biographer Sir Walter Murdoch (see below).

Murdoch, Walter. Alfred Deakin: A Sketch. London: Constable, 1923. Written with complete family cooperation, this is an affectionate but still relevant biography by a university professor who knew him.

Rickard, John. A Family Romance: The Deakins at Home. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 1996. Examines Deakin’s family life, focusing on his relationship with his wife, Pattie, and his sister, Catherine. Rickard describes the important influence of mysticism in Deakin’s life, explaining how spiritualism brought Deakin and his wife together and haunted their marriage.

Souter, Gavin. Lion and Kangaroo: Australia, 1901-1919, The Rise of a Nation. Sydney, N.S.W.: William Collins, 1976. A well-written and entertaining account of the early years of the Commonwealth of Australia and the milieu that Deakin adorned.