Egerton Lee Batchelor (1865-1911) Robert Wallace Best (1856-1946) Member for South Australia 1901-1903 Senator for Victoria 1901-1910 Member for Boothby (South Australia) 1903-1911 orn in Adelaide, South Australia, Egerton Minister for External Affairs, took over obert Best was born in Collingwood, BLee Batchelor trained as a teacher before responsibility for the Northern Territory RMelbourne, Victoria. He practised as a becoming an engine-fitter. A member of the in 1911, claiming that “the treatment of lawyer, was Mayor of Fitzroy City Council Amalgamated Society of Engineers while still the natives formed the blackest page in 1888-89 and the member for Fitzroy in the in his teens, Batchelor was a leader of the Australian history.” Victorian Legislative Assembly 1889-1901. early labour movement in South Australia, holding office on the Trades and Labor Batchelor died suddenly while climbing Best, a Protectionist, was elected to represent Council from 1889, and playing an important Mt Donna Buang in Victoria in October 1911. Victoria in the Senate at the first federal part in the formation of the United Labor Party He was still a member of the House of elections in 1901. The Senate elected Best as in 1891. He was elected to the House of Representatives. its first Chairman of Committees in 1901. He Assembly as the Labor member for West was included in Deakin’s Protectionist Adelaide in 1893, and held his seat until 1901. ministry as Vice-President of the Executive Moderate in his approach, he became Minister Council in 1907-08, when he was also Leader for Education and Agriculture in F.W. Holder’s of the Government in the Senate. He was non-Labor ministry. Minister for Trade and Customs in the Fusion Government during 1907-10. He was defeated In 1901 Batchelor was the only Labor member at the 1910 elections but later that year was elected to represent South Australia in the elected as the member for Kooyong in the House of Representatives at the first federal House of Representatives at a by-election, election. From 1903 he represented the serving his electorate until 1922. electorate of Boothby. A respected figure in the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party, Best was knighted in 1908 and continued to Batchelor was a member of the Labor practise as a lawyer throughout his political ministries of Watson and Fisher. Always a career. reformer and liberal thinker, Batchelor, as The state of South Australia did not divide into electoral divisions for the purposes of the first The state of Victoria was also represented in the first Senate by: federal election. South Australia, as a whole, was also represented in the first House of Representatives by: Simon Fraser Sir William Austin Zeal Sir Frederick Thomas Sargood Sir John Langdon Bonython Frederick William Holder Alexander Poynton Patrick McMahon Glynn Charles Cameron Kingston Vaiben Louis Solomon James Styles John George Barrett.