John Christian Watson (April 9, 1867 – November 18, 1941), known as Chris Watson, Australian politician, was the third Prime Minister of Australia, and the first federal parliamentary leader of the Australian Labour Party (renamed Labor in 1912 by King O'Malley). He was the party's first prime minister, and the first Labour Party prime minister in the world. Despite being elected Labour leader by the party caucus two months after the inaugural 1901 federal election (just before the first meeting of Parliament) and retiring in 1907, his tenure as Prime Minister was brief at only four months in 1904. According to Percival Serle, Watson "left a much greater impression on his time than this would suggest. He came at the right moment for his party, and nothing could have done it more good than the sincerity, courtesy and moderation which he always showed as a leader."

Early life

Watson maintained that his father was a British seaman called George Watson. Records dispute this however, indicating Watson was born in Valparaiso, Chile, and his father was a Chilean citizen of German descent, Johan Cristian Tanck. This may have been due to the heavy anti-multicultural attitude of Australia at the time. Records also show his mother was a New Zealander, Martha Minchin, who had married Tanck in New Zealand and then gone to sea with him. In 1868 his parents separated, and in 1869 she married George Watson, whose name young Chris then took. None of these facts became known until after Watson's death.

Watson went to school in Oamaru, New Zealand, and at 13 was apprenticed as a printer. In 1886 he moved to Sydney to better his prospects. He found work as a compositor for several newspapers. Through this proximity to newspapers, books and writers he furthered his education and developed an interest in politics.

Union activities and state politics

Watson was a founding member of the New South Wales Labor Party in 1891. He was an active trade unionist, and became Vice-President of the Sydney Trades and Labour Council in January 1892. In June 1892, he settled a dispute between the TLC and the Labor Party and as a result became the president of the council and chairman of the party. In 1893 and 1894, he worked hard to resolve the debate over the solidarity pledge and established the Labor Party's basic practices, including the sovereignty of the party conference, caucus solidarity, the pledge required of parliamentarians and the powerful role of the extra-parliamentary executive. In 1894 Watson was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for the country seat of Young. Labor at this time had a policy of "support in return for concessions," and Watson voted with his colleagues to keep the Free Trade Premier, Sir George Reid, in office. After the 1898 election, Watson and Labor leader James McGowen decided to keep the Reid government in office so that it could complete the work of establishing Federation, in opposition to William Holman and Billy Hughes, who were less supportive of Federation.

Federal politics

The trade union movement and its political representatives, the forerunners of the modern Australian Labor Party, were intensely suspicious of Federation. In particular, labour representatives argued against the proposed constitution, claiming the Senate as proposed was much too powerful, similar to the anti-reformist Colonial upper houses. They feared federation would distract attention from the need of social and industrial reform, and further entrench the power of the conservative forces. Once it was accomplished, however, Watson decided to stand for the new federal Parliament at the inaugural 1901 federal election, in the Australian House of Representatives rural seat of Bland which he won.

Arriving in Melbourne, the temporary capital, in May, Watson was elected the first leader of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party (usually known as the Caucus). McGowen had failed to gain election, and the other prominent New South Wales MP elected, Hughes had too many enemies. Watson, though a compromise choice, soon established his authority as leader.

In the federal Parliament, where Labor was the smallest of the three parties, but held the balance of power, Watson pursued the same policy as Labor had done in the colonial parliaments. He kept the Protectionist governments of Edmund Barton and Alfred Deakin in office, in exchange for legislation enacting the Labor platform, particularly the enactment of White Australia.

Watson, as a Labor moderate, genuinely admired Deakin and shared his liberal views on many subjects. Deakin reciprocated this sentiment. He wrote in one of his anonymous articles in a London newspaper: "The Labour section has much cause for gratitude to Mr Watson, the leader whose tact and judgement have enabled it to achieve many of its Parliamentary successes."

Prime Minister in 1904

Labor under Watson more than doubled their vote at the 1903 federal election and continued to hold the balance of power. In April 1904, however, Watson and Deakin fell out over the issue of extending the scope of industrial relations laws concerning the Conciliation and Arbitration Bill to cover state public servants, the fallout causing Deakin to resign. Free Trade leader George Reid declined to take office, which saw Watson become the first Labor Prime Minister of Australia, and to this day continues to be the youngest in any party.

The triumph of the historic first Australian Labor government was a qualified one – Labor did not have the numbers to implement key policies. Six bills were enacted during the brief government of John Christian Watson. All but one – an amended Acts Interpretation Act 1904 – were supply bills. The significant legislative achievement of the Watson government was the advancement of the troublesome Conciliation and Arbitration Bill (passed later that year by the government of George Reid).

A noteable curiousity is the last page of a secret despatch from Australia’s Governor-General to Britain’s Colonial Secretary 23 April 1904, detailing circumstances that created the first Labor Prime Minister in the British Empire.

Billy Hughes, another Australian Prime Minister, later recalled the first meeting of the Labor Cabinet with characteristic sharp wit:

Despite the fitness of the new Prime Minister for his role, the government hung on the fine thread of Deakin's promise of ‘fair play’. The ‘three elevens’ – the lack of a definite majority in the parliament after the second federal election – dogged Watson just as it had Deakin. His government was also defeated on the Conciliation and Arbitration Bill and Watson lost the prime ministership after less than four months in office.

Although Watson sought a double dissolution of parliament so that an election could be held, Lord Northcote, the Governor-General, refused. Unable to command a majority in the House of Representatives, Watson resigned, and his term in office ended on 18 August 1904, and Free Trade leader George Reid became Prime Minister.

Watson led the Labor Party into the 1906 federal election and improved its position again. At this election Bland was abolished, so he shifted to the seat of South Sydney. But in October 1907, mainly due to concern over the health of his wife Ada, he resigned the Labor leadership in favour of Andrew Fisher. At the 1910 elections, at which Fisher beat Deakin comfortably, he retired from politics, aged only 42.

Later life

Out of the Parliamentary arena, Watson continued to work for Labor, becoming Director of Labor Papers Ltd, publishers of The Worker, the Australian Workers Union paper. He also pursued a business career. But in 1916 the Labor party split over the issue of conscription for World War I, and Watson sided with Hughes and the conscriptionists. He was expelled from the party he had helped found. He remained active in the affairs of Hughes's Nationalist Party until 1922, but after that he drifted out of politics altogether.

Watson devoted the rest of his life to business. He helped found the National Roads and Motorists Association (NRMA) and remained its chairman until his death. He was also a founder of the Australian Motorists Petrol Co Ltd (Ampol). His wife Ada died in 1921.

On 30 October 1925 Watson married Antonia Mary Gladys Dowlan in the same church in which he had married Ada 36 years previously. His second wife was a 23-year-old waitress from Western Australia whom he had met when she served his table at the Commercial Travellers’ Club he frequented when in Sydney. He and Antonia had one daughter, Jacqueline. Watson died at his home in the Sydney suburb of Double Bay.

Honours

In April 2004 the Labor Party marked the centenary of the Watson Government with a series of public events in Canberra and Melbourne, attended by then party leader Mark Latham and former leaders Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. Watson's daughter, Jacqueline Dunn, 77, was guest of honour at these functions. Australian historian Dr Ross McMullin published a new study of Watson and the Watson government, called So Monstrous a Travesty.

The Canberra suburb Watson and the federal electorate of Watson are named after him.

Notes

References

Al Grassby and Silvia Ordonez, The Man Time Forgot: The Life and Times of John Christian Watson, Australia's First Labor Prime Minister, Pluto Press 1999
Ross McMullin, So Monstrous a Travesty: Chris Watson and the World's First National Labour Government, Scribe Press 2004
Chilean-Australians

Other pages about Chilean Australians

-Andy Vargas -Chilean Australian -Chris Watson -Dion Valle -Hispanic Australian -Nick Carle -Peggy Antonio -Rodrigo Vargas

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