11 SIR ARTHUR MORGAN: THE SOCIETY'S FIRST PRESIDENT by XORMAX S. PIXLEY President of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society at Seivstead House 28 September 1978. One might expect that a family with the name of Morgan would have had its origin in Wales, but whatever there may have been in deeper connection, James Morgan, the father of Sir Arthur, was born at Longford, Ireland in 1816. He studied as a surveyor and spent three years on survey work in Wales before emigrating to Sydney in 1840. For the next seven years he was engaged in station work and managed a property on the Xamoi River for W. C. Wentworth. Then, coming to the Darling Downs late in 1849, he undertook the management of Old Talgai for the Gammie brothers. In 1856 he took charge of Rosenthal for the North British Australian Company. Rosenthal was the southern strip of the original holding of the Leslie brothers and played a leading role in Queensland's earliest pastoral history. James Morgan's stay at Rosenthal was short — little more than a year — before he went across to form the North Toolburra Sta­ tion holding for R. G. Massie, who, incidentallv, was one of the originally nominated Legislative Councillors for Queensland after separation in 1859. But the brief stay at Rosenthal is notable for the fact that it was there, on 19 September 1856 that Arthur Morgan, the future Premier and Lieutenant-Governor was born. Other events in the father's life were to shape the destinv of the young Arthur. James Morgan purchased Summer Hill in 1860 and afterwards was appointed inspector of stock for the Darling Downs. This brought him into conflict with some of the squatters and, in March 1868 he decided to forsake the land and concentrate on public affairs through the then sole and all- powerful medium of the newspaper press. He bought the Wanvick Argus, which had been founded a few years earlier by Patrick Ritchie, formerly editor of a newspaper at Tenterfield, who brought his plant to Warwick bv bullock drav. 12 The paper in opposition to the Argus was the Warwick Examiner and Times. Both were forthright in their expressions, and for James Morgan in the 1860s the Argus was a voice for his fearless campaign against land "dummying" and for his cause of the small man and the genuine selector. His fearlessness involved him, as editor, in a law suit, but his supporters paid the costs and damages awarded. In 1869 he was elected to the Legislative Assembly. Defeated in 1871 but re-elected in 1873, he served until 1876 and died in 1878. Thus were laid the circumstances by which his son Arthur, as a young man, was thrust into local prominence which led him on to the State's leadership. Arthur was barely 22 when his father died. The Morgan men were big in build, and Arthur added to an impressive appearance a natural courtesy and charm that marked him out for early public favour . something that was to be helped by the influence of his position as Director of the Argus. He had been appointed a Justice of the Peace before reaching the age of 20. He became successively a town alderman. Mayor of Warwick, and member of the Legislative Assembly. From the time of his election to Parliament in 1883, he was never defeated for the Warwick seat. In January 1906 he resigned to become President of the Legislative Council. There was, in fact, one voluntary break in that span of Parlia­ mentary service. That was in 1896, when a seat had to be found for the brilliant Thomas Joseph Byrnes, whose gift it was felt should not be lost to Queensland because of his defeat for one of the Brisbane seats. Arthur Morgan was not seeking re-election in Warwick, and the seat was offered to T. J. Byrnes, who held it until his lamented death in 1898 when he had been only five months in office as Premier. FROM SPEAKER TO PREMIER With the selection again open, Arthur Morgan contested the constituency and was returned with the largest majority he had ever received. He became Speaker of the House in 1899, and on the failure of Sir Robert Philp's Government in 1903, stepped down from the chair to form a Government. He was Premier, Chief Secretary and Secretary for Railways from then until Janu­ ary 1906 when he went to the Council — an appointed and not an elective body. His becoming Premier from the Speakership without having led a party or been a member of the Ministry, was unique in Queensland political history. 13 It was his election as Premier in 1899 that marked the turning point in Arthur Morgan's political career. He had been a popular Member of the Legislative Assembly from the time of his first election. He became Chairman of Committees in 1891, but the fragmented nature of parties and groups represented in the Queensland Parliament at that time made political advancement less of a certainty for men who adhered to strict principle. Sir Arthur Morgan It happened that 1899 was to be a momentous year in Queens­ land politics, one in which the Parliament was to decide on the Federal Enabling Bill, which was actually a prelude to acceptance and enactment of the Federal Constitution. It was a year to see, before its close, the formation of Anderson Dawson's six-dav Government — the first Labour Government formed anywhere in the world. It was, in truth, the strength with which Dawson and his followers had been returned at the recent election which led to Morgan's defeating Alfred Sandlings Cowley for the Speakership at the first meeting of the new Assembly on 16 Mav 1899. The Premier was the Honourable James Dickson, who had assumed leadership of the Government on the death of T. J. Byrnes. When it came to nomination of a Speaker it was evident 14 that a section of the House was intent on displacing Cowley, who had been Speaker for the last six years, the suggestion being that he had been partial and biased in his rulings. Cowley (later knighted for his public services and, subse­ quently, holder of the Speakership again after Morgan) was member for the North Queensland constituency of Herbert. C. A. Bernays, the Parliamentary historian, has written highly in praise of his activities in the chair, but there is no doubt that on this occasion, in 1899, Cowley was the target of those who wanted another occupant in the office. Whilst he had his stout defenders, Hansard quotes Labour leader Dawson as saying: "I have found that. the Government has had a very violent partisan in the person of the Speaker . Mr. Cowley did not, as Speaker in the chair, hold the scales equally as between each side of the House ..." This view was supported by Andrew Fisher, then State mem­ ber for Gympie. Dawson then came out directly to support Arthur Morgan for the post, saying he had qualities "far and away superior" to those of Cowley. When the motion for Cowley's election as Speaker was put, it was defeated by 40 votes to 25. The vote had been taken on non­ party lines with, as we have seen, a solid Opposition backing for Morgan, whose election was then carried on the voices. He was the first native-born speaker of the Queensland Parliament. One more sidelight on the political line-up of the Speakership in 1899 is that when Morgan did attain the Premiership in 1903, it came about through the Labour Party's invitation to lead a composite group consisting of themselves and seceders from Sir Robert Philp. Morgan accepted the offer. Bernays says of Arthur Morgan's advent to State politics in 1883: The future had in store for him a great career — the Chair­ manship of Committees, the Speakership and the Premier­ ship. He eventually became President of the Legislative Council and was knighted and on numerous occasions acted as Lieutenant-Governor. The young men of today studying the career of Sir Arthur Morgan will find in it an example and much to inspire them. Bernays also says the only other of the State's public men (to that time) comparable with Sir Arthur Morgan was Sir Hugh Nelson, whom he succeeded in the presidency of the Council: 15 Both were men of homely, kindly instincts. Both kept their large following in the Legislative Council together by force of strong personal regard for the leader. And both,were endowed with those subtle instincts associated with nature's gentlemen which, while they endeared them to individuals, were strangely thrown away in the hurly- burly of politics ... In many respects he was an ideal public man, anti there was universal regret at his too-early death. FRANCHISE FOR WOMEN Women owe something to the memory of Sir Arthur Morgan, for it was during his Government's term in office that they were given the franchise in State elections. They exercised the vote for the first time at the election of 18 May 1907. Bernays records that this measure enfranchised 100,000 women. One of the hot political issues during Sir Arthur's time in pub­ lic life was the question of building the section of railway known as the Via Recta. Briefly this was a plan for connecting the Fassifern Valley railway line at Mount Edwards to the branch line from Warwick at Maryvale. There were variants in detail, but that was the general idea.