William Holman

Early life

Holman was born in St Pancras, London, England in 1871, the son of William Holman, an actor. His mother was also on the stage under the name of May Burney. He was educated at an Anglican school and was apprenticed as a cabinetmaker. He attended night classes and literary societies. There were bad times in the theatrical profession during the 1880s, and the Holmans were glad to obtain an engagement with Brough and Boucicault in Australia. The family migrated to Melbourne, Victoria in October 1888. The burning of the Bijou Theatre in Melbourne resulted in their move to Sydney, New South Wales.

Trade union activity

As a cabinet maker in Sydney he was interested in the ideas of John Stuart Mill, William Morris, Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin, and became very active in the Australian labour movement. He joined the Single Tax League, the Australian Socialist League and the newly formed Labor Electoral League, a forerunner to the Australian Labor Party (ALP). In the Australian Socialist League he mixed with anarchists and socialists and met future Prime Minister Billy Hughes, Creo Stanley, Ernie Lane, Henry Lawson and J.D.Fitzgerald. Holman and Hughes were associated with Arthur Desmond on the scandal sheet paper, The New Order.

In 1893 he became Secretary of the Railways and Tramways Employees’ Union, representing the union on the Sydney Trades and Labor Council. With the support of the Labor Electoral League he unsuccessfully stood for election to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1894 and 1895. During this period he was the proprietor of the Daily Post newspaper, sympathetic to the labour movement, which wound up in liquidation, with Holman and four other directors convicted of fraud. He spent nearly two months in jail before the conviction was quashed. He went on to become a journalist for the Grenfell Vedette, and later its proprietor. From 1896 to 1898 he worked as an organiser for the Australian Workers' Union.

Legal profession

In 1900 Holman began to study law part-time and in 1903 he passed the University of London's intermediate examination, and was admitted to the bar as a barrister of the Supreme Court of New South Wales on 31 July 1903. In 1909 he co-authored with P.A. Jacobs Australian Mercantile Law. In the 1920s, when he resumed his legal practice, he was made a Kings Counsel. After a lectureship in Brisbane in 1928, The Australian constitution : its interpretation and amendment was published.

Politician and Premier

In the late 1890s Holman was on the central executive of the embryonic Labor Party, before being elected as the Member for Grenfell in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1898. When Grenfell was abolished in 1904 as part of the post-Federation downsizing of the Legislative Assembly, Holman transferred to the new seat of Cootamundra. He became deputy-leader of the Labor party in 1905. In 1910 the Labor Party first won Government in New South Wales with a slim majority of 46 seats in a parliament of 90 seats, with James McGowen as Premier, and Holman made Attorney General.

On 30 June 1913 McGowen resigned and Holman was named leader of the New South Wales Labor Party and hence became Premier. During his government, many state-owned enterprises were established to compete with private businesses, as a compromise to the Labor policy on Nationalisation. The Labor Party had a policy commitment to abolishing the New South Wales Legislative Council, with Holman moving a motion in 1893 that the upper house be abolished. Only 47 per cent of Government bills were passed by the Upper House for the period between 1910 and 1916. But Holman contradicted his position in 1912 by making nine appointments to the Upper House, some of which were not members of the Labor Party, without consultation with the party machine or the Trades and Labor Council. Other issues placing him at odds with the labour movement include the failure to control prices and profiteering during the war, and attitudes to pay and conditions of public servants.

In 1916 the conscription issue divided the Labor Party and wider Australian Community. While much of the Australian labour movement and general community were opposed to conscription, Australian Labor Prime Minister Billy Hughes and Premier Holman strongly supported conscription, and both were expelled from the Labor Party for this stance. On 15 November 1916, Holman and 17 other pro-conscription Labor MPs formed a coalition with the leader of the opposition Liberal Reform Party, Charles Wade, with Holman remaining as Premier. Early in 1917, Holman and his supporters merged with Liberal Reform to form the state branch of the Nationalist Party of Australia, with Holman as leader. At the general election held that March, the Nationalists won a huge victory.

Holman vigorously defended the state-owned enterprises from his new conservative allies. In the 13 March 1920 state election, Holman and his Nationalists were thrown from office in a massive swing, being succeeded by a Labor Government under the short-lived John Storey. Unusually for a long-serving premier, Holman was defeated in his own seat. However, he continued outside Parliament as a senior figure in conservative politics.

Holman's later parliamentary career was less notable than might have been expected from his 1910-20 achievements. He was elected to the federal Parliament as the Sydney seat of Martin in December 1931 as a member of the United Australia Party, which by this time had absorbed the Nationalists. He had an undistinguished time as a backbencher in the Joseph Lyons government. His health having deteriorated over a considerable period, he died on 5 June 1934 in the Sydney suburb of Gordon, apparently from shock and loss of blood after a difficult tooth extraction on the previous day. He was cremated at Northern Suburbs crematorium on 6 June 1934.

Holman is a controversial figure, as along with Hughes, he became and remains a traitor in Labor histories for crossing over to the conservative side. Although he protected the state-owned enterprises he helped create, the Australian labour movement still considers him a "rat."

Family

On 22 January 1901, Holman married journalist and novelist Ada Augusta Kidgell, niece of James Kidgell, a Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly. Their one child, Portia, was born on 20 November 1903; she was to become a doctor.