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Holt, Stephen – Billy Hughes and His Radical

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Holt, Stephen – Billy Hughes and His Radical Billy Hughes and His Radical Son Stephen Holt examines the life of a Prime Minister’s son, for whom war and the Great Depression were a test of loyalty above he National Library of Australia’s he received a Military Medal for conspicuous Home Once More (Sydney: The Sydney collection of the private papers of gallantry and devotion to duty in an attack on Mail, 1919) TWilliam ‘Billy’ Morris Hughes, enemy lines. negative; 12.5 x 9.9 cm Pictures Collection Australia’s Prime Minister from 1915 to 1923, The young soldier stuck by his father during nla.pic-vn3080075 documents a fiery career. Despite having been the conscription controversy. In a letter written a dynamic figure in the Australian Labor Party to his father in the lead-up to the second Bill Hughes (far right) with his father, stepmother Mary, (ALP) during its formative years, Hughes conscription referendum in December 1917, half-sister Helen and dog split with the party in 1916 over the issue of Bill declared himself to be ‘very much in at the family home in Kew, military conscription (he was for it) and threw favour’ of conscription. His only regret was Melbourne. in his lot with the anti-Labor forces. that he was too young to be able to vote ‘yes’ in below Active in politics until his death at the age the referendum. George Dancey The Crime of Those of 90, Billy Hughes never reconciled with his Bill’s safe return to Australia after the war Who Vote ‘No!’ old party but, as his papers indicate, a member was covered in the newspapers. In the spring (Melbourne: of his family did. From family correspondence of 1919, The Sydney Mail featured a photograph Melbourne Punch, 1916) b&w poster; 75 x 50 cm we can piece together the contrasting political of Bill being welcomed home by his father, Pictures Collection evolution of his son, Ernest Morris Hughes along with his stepmother, Mary, and half- nla.pic-an14107651 (always known as ‘Bill’), who supported his sister, Helen, (his father remarried after Bill’s father on the conscription mother, Elizabeth, died in 1906). The future issue before returning, seemed so promising. buffeted by economic Peace, though, was a letdown. The original hardship, to the Labor intention was for Bill, having studied at camp that his father had Hawkesbury Agricultural College, to make abandoned. his living in rural Victoria before the war. Bill was aged 18 when, But he was not a successful farmer and, by in 1916, he volunteered 1924, he was residing in the Melbourne to serve in the Great suburb of St Kilda, his failure as a farmer a War. He never sought disappointment to his father. promotion. It was Bill joined the workforce which paved and newsworthy indeed mended postwar Melbourne’s roads, although for a son of Australia’s it seems he worked in a supervisory capacity extraordinary Prime rather than as a labourer. His father wanted Minister to be serving him to stay in the country and the two had as a private in the ranks little, if any, contact after Bill left farming. on the Western Front. Over the next few years, the young man Wartime press reports married (his wife’s given name was Hersee) readily identified Bill and became the father of two children (Beryl as the ‘eldest son of Mr May and William Morris) without his father W.M. Hughes’ or as ‘his (now a disgruntled backbencher) having any eldest boy’. No shirker, knowledge of these developments. 24:: In the winter of 1927, mounting financial By the winter of 1928, Bill was living with above from left The Arrival of the Rt. Hon. pressure caused Bill to turn to his father his family in a rented house in the suburb of W.M. Hughes to Attend the for material assistance. In two surviving Kingston. He was able to tell his father that Imperial War Conference, He was Welcomed at Euston by Mrs letters written over the space of nine he was getting by ‘quite satisfactorily’ on work Hughes, His Soldier Son and days, he indicated his escalating domestic tendered by the Federal Capital Commission, Little Daughter 1918 responsibilities and requested a loan of £200 with his father lending him the money (with sepia-toned print 24.2 x 29.3 cm so that he could tender for a contract for road interest) to cover the security and deposit Pictures Collection work being advertised by the local council. for each tender. The hope was that he would nla.pic-vn3065078 Bill also told his father that he would be soon be self-sufficient, financing new bids for Portrait of William Morris ‘greatly relieved to get employment of any construction contracts from the profits of his Hughes Being Carried by kind no matter where it was’. He went on to previous work. Soldiers along a Crowded Street, 1918 1919 mention the possibility that, on the strength Bill regularly bade for contracts from the sepia-toned print of a dairy certificate that he had acquired as commission but there were long periods 19.5 x 24.4 cm well as his experience in road construction, he between jobs. A flurry of recorded activity Pictures Collection nla.pic-an23150756 might be able to pick up work in Australia’s occurred in the autumn of 1929, when he brand-new bush capital, Canberra. successfully tendered for three contracts. below Billy Hughes had no intention of He continued to rely on his father for the Hal Eyre (b. 1875) A Hard Case for Labor (detail) unconditionally lending his son the stipulated money to cover each bid and Billy Hughes 1912 sum of £200. He was prepared, though, to consistently urged him to ‘wade in and make a pen and ink drawing; 8.3 x 4.5 cm subsidise his son, provided he could keep success of the jobs’. Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn3308188 a direct eye on him. He seized on Bill’s In the fatal economic month of October stated willingness to join him in the move to 1929, Bill asked his father to fund a bid Canberra. To advance this scheme, the former for a ‘big job in my line’. Prosperity, Prime Minister approached Sir John Butters, however, remained elusive. The Great the Federal Capital Commissioner, and told Depression was soon underway and Bill, him that Bill was keen to work as a supervisor like numerous other Australians at the of roadworks in Canberra. time, became a victim. On Australia This approach to the Federal Capital Day 1930, he reminded his father that Commissioner notwithstanding, Bill did things were ‘very bad here’, although not receive special treatment when, having under the circumstances he was still accepted the Canberra option, he came to getting by ‘comparatively well’. By the the national capital in the spring of 1927. following April, though, he had to admit His first place of residence was at the Capital that Canberra had ‘gone flat’. The threat of Hill Camp, near the recently constructed impending dismissals cast a gloom over the Parliament House. Here he dwelt alongside infant capital. carpenters, linesmen, kitchen staff and other In short, Bill never thrived as a private pioneering Canberra workers as he settled contractor. He had a strong work ethic but, it down to find permanent employment. is fair to say, he was not cut out for a business the national library magazine :: september 2012 :: 25 again in the army but was considered too old. Instead, he became a worker in a Sydney munitions factory. As soon as the war ended, Bill looked to his paternal connection to help him get back to Canberra. After Japan surrendered, he immediately contacted his father to see if he would approach the appropriate officer in the Department of the Interior to support his application, despatched two days earlier, to return to his prewar occupation as a gardener. Billy Hughes, a prominent Opposition member since 1941 (he above career, especially in the 1930s when things was the leader of the Gerald Spencer Pryse (artist, 1882–1956) were so tough. By 1934 he was involved in United Australia Party in the 1943 federal Labor Stands for All Who Work! road maintenance work that was much more election), was ready to lobby a Labor minister Vote Labor (Sydney: Australian Labor arduous than the construction work he was on his son’s behalf and, more importantly, Party, NSW Branch, 1928) used to in Melbourne. He was, when he was the Labor minister concerned (H.V. Johnson, colour poster; 76.1 x 101.6 cm not without work at all, a labourer. Minister for the Interior) was most helpful. Pictures Collection nla.pic-an8263661 Adversity caused Bill to turn to the Labor Hughes made a written representation to movement in Canberra. Press reports in Johnson. Bill was ‘keenly appreciative’ when, the mid-1930s indicate that he joined the in his formal response, the minister told his Australian Workers’ Union and helped to father that ‘employment will be available to organise rallies outside Parliament House to your son in the Parks and Gardens Section of protest against the government’s stringent the Department’. employment policies. He was also an active Bill’s wife Hersee died in 1949, aged only member of the ALP, becoming secretary of the 43. Bill remarried and continued to live in Canberra branch in 1938. At the time, he was Canberra. He was one of the pallbearers at his employed by the Department of the Interior as father’s funeral in 1952. His retirement was a gardener. spent in rural New South Wales.
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