Chris Watson

John Christian " Chris " Watson ( * probably April 9, 1867 in Valparaíso, Chile, † November 18, 1941 in Sydney, New South Wales) was an Australian Labor politician and the third Prime Minister of the country. His term lasted from April 27 until August 17, 1904. He introduced the world's first social democratic government at the national level. He is also with the age of 37 when he took office the youngest Prime Minister to date Australian history. Of 17 August 1904 to 5 July 1905, he was the leader of the opposition.

Life

Before he became prime minister (until April 1904)

His own background concerning, Chris Watson stated always, his father was the British sailor George Watson was. He took his name, however, in younger years. His mother, Martha, born Minchin, married only in this second marriage when he was 2 years old. In fact, it was with his father to Johan Christian Tanck, a Chilean citizen of German origin. Chris Watson was the only child from the first marriage of his mother. These details of its origin were not known until after Chris Watson's death. So there was hidden during his lifetime that he was not British, so not a Member of Parliament in Australia should have been, nor Prime Minister of the country. Also known as " Brite" he was never naturalized to Australia.

Shortly after his birth, and even before the divorce of his mother with his actual father in 1868, her home was to New Zealand, emigrated. So Chris Watson grew up in Oamaru on with his 9 step- siblings. He left school in 1877 at the age of 10 years to first be railroad workers. At 13 he began an apprenticeship as a typesetter in the printing of the newspaper North Otago Times. He joined already at that time a union.

In 1886 he moved to Sydney Australia, where he worked for several newspapers and thereby developed an interest in the politics of the day. As a union member, and quickly rose in the Sydney Trades and Union Council. In 1891 he was a co-founder of the Labour Electoral League, a forerunner of the later Australian Labor Party (ALP ) in New South Wales. Chris Watson was in 1894 elected to the Parliament of this colony.

On November 27, 1889, he married the immigrant from England seamstress Ada Jane Lowe, with whom he lived until her death in 1921. This marriage remained childless.

As a Labour politician, he represented moderate positions and led a party internally many basic rules concerning the procedures and organization. He entered, even if not a very decided, for the union of the British colonies in Australia into an independent Australian state.

After the Australian state on January 1, 1901, realized he could move as an elected Member of Parliament for the constituency of Bland in the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament after the first Australian parliamentary elections on 29 March 1901. Prior to this election, he resigned from his position as member of the state parliament of New South Wales, which he had until then maintained continuously down.

Two days before the inaugural session of the first Australian Parliament on 10 May 1901 which at that time was held in the provisional capital of Melbourne, he was surprisingly chosen as a compromise candidate to James McGowan and Billy Hughes as party leader of the ALP. He was also at this time only 34 years old.

In the parliamentary elections of December 1903 his seat was confirmed.

As prime minister (April to August 1904 )

During the first two terms of office of Australian Prime Minister Edmund Barton and Alfred Deakin, who represented a protectionist policy, Labour formed next to conservatives and liberals as the third force by far the smallest group. Both Prime Minister were still dependent on the support of Labour. About the question of payment of public servants, there were differences of opinion. After Alfred Deakin took place in March 1904 for a standing in this context law, Conciliation and Arbitration Bill, not a majority, of these resigned on April 27. On the same day Chris Watson was commissioned by Governor General Lord Henry Northcote to form a government and he became Prime Minister.

In view of the majority in Parliament but it was clear that Chris Watson only would be able to keep if he would renounce decidedly socialist programs and continue the moderate policy Deakins. Ultimately stumbled Chris Watson, like his predecessors, on the adoption of the same law, which he also could not get through parliament. As a way of maintaining power he now saw the resolution of both Houses of Parliament in order to create new elections by a clear majority ratios can. The Governor-General, however, did not meet his request. On August 17, he therefore had to give up his office, which took over the now free-trade advocates George Reid.

After he was prime minister (from August 1904)

In 1906 he led the ALP in an election campaign, for which she received significant electoral gains. Also in this election, he won a parliamentary seat, now for the constituency of South Sydney, as his old was abolished. Nevertheless, he decided in October 1907, just 40 years old, leave the party presidency to Andrew Fisher. He remained, however, associated with his party and joined again and again as a campaigner for you. He also assisted them in producing their own party newspapers.

Only later he found himself increasingly with the majority of ALP together when he entered during the First World War for the introduction of conscription in Australia. He was so out of the party, which he co-founded excluded. After the end of his political career he was active temporarily for the unions, then went to the National Roads and Motorists Association, whose chairman he remained until his death. Moreover, it was Chris Watson businessman in the wool and textile industries, as well as in the field of transport.

On October 30, 1925 he married his second wife a native of Western Australia 23 -year-old waitress Antonia Mary Gladys Dowlan in the same church, in which he even married his first wife. From this marriage came in 1927 Chris Watson's only child, his daughter Jacqueline forth.

He died on November 18, 1941 in his home in Double Bay, a southern suburb of Sydney.