William Guthrie Spence (1846-1926) James Charles Stewart (1851-1931)

Member for Darling () 1901-1917 Senator for Queensland 1901-1917 Member for Darwin () 1917-1919

orn on the Orkney island of Eday, workers. Spence was the member for Cobar ames Stewart was born in Grantown-on- BScotland, William Spence arrived in in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly JSpey, Scotland. He worked as a clerk in a in the early 1850s with his family. 1898-1901. solicitor’s office and later conducted business He is reputed to have witnessed the miners’ as a coal merchant in Glasgow. He arrived in rebellion at Eureka in 1854 as a small boy. In 1901 Spence was elected to represent the Rockhampton, Queensland in 1880. Stewart Spence worked as a miner from an early age federal seat of Darling for the Labor Party in was a member of the Queensland Legislative and although he had no formal education, the House of Representatives. Although Assembly 1896-1901. he read socialist treatises and preached in the Spence held ministerial office as Postmaster- Primitive Methodist Church and with the Bible General in the Fisher Government 1914-15 Stewart was one of three Labor members Christians. and was Vice-President of the Executive to be elected to represent Queensland in the Council 1916-17, his reputation and influence Senate at the first federal election. He held A leader in the formation of rural trade unions among Labor supporters continued to rest on several senior Labor Party positions in the in , Spence’s driving vision was to his achievements as a union organiser and on Senate, including Labor Party Whip protect and promote the interests of workers his inspirational vision of a united workforce. 1901-1908. of all kinds. He was instrumental in establishing such umbrella bodies as the Spence was forced to resign from the Labor Amalgamated Miners Association of Party in 1917 over the conscription issue, and Australasia, the Amalgamated Shearers Union subsequently lost his seat, but was returned of Australia, and ultimately the Australian to the House of Representatives as a Workers Union, of which he was Secretary Nationalist for the Tasmanian seat of Darwin 1894-98, and President 1898-1917. His role in in a by-election later that year. He was unionising shearers and also in precipitating defeated in a contest for the seat of Batman, the maritime strike of 1890 made him an Victoria in 1919. anathema to employers but a hero to pastoral

The state of Queensland was also represented in the first Senate by: The electorate of Darling was named after Sir Ralph Darling (1775–1858), a Governor of New South Wales. William Guy Higgs Andrew Dawson James George Drake

John Ferguson Thomas Glassey