Andrew Fisher Totally Explained

Everything about Andrew Fisher totally explained

Andrew Fisher (29 August, 1862 – 22 October, 1928) was an Australian politician and the fifth Prime Minister of Australia. Fisher's 1910-13 ministry completed a vast legislative programme which made him, along with Protectionist Alfred Deakin, the founder of the statutory structure of the new nation. According to D. J. Murphy, "his contemporaries saw him as honest and trustworthy, but surpassed by Billy Hughes in wit, oratory and brilliance. Fisher's record however reveals a legacy of reforms and national development which lasted beyond the divisions that Hughes left in the Labor Party and in Australia".
Fisher's second Prime Ministership in 1910 represented a number of firsts: it was Australia's first majority government; Australia's first Senate majority; the world's first Labour Party majority government; the first time the Labour Party had controlled any house of a legislature; and the first time it controlled both houses of a bicameral legislature.

Early life

Fisher was born in Crosshouse, a mining village near Kilmaurs, East Ayrshire, Scotland. He was one of seven children of Robert Fisher and Jane Garvin. Fisher's education consisted of some primary schooling, some night schooling, and the reading of books in the library of the cooperative his father had helped to establish. He began working at the age of 10 in the Crosshouse coal mines. At 17 he was elected secretary of the local branch of the Ayrshire Miners' Union. This was the first step in a career of activism that eventually led him into politics.
His activism resulted in his being blacklisted by the colliery and so, unable to find work, Fisher and his brother migrated to Queensland in 1885. Despite leaving his homeland Fisher is said to haved retained a distinctive Scottish accent for the rest of his life.
In 1891, Fisher was elected as the first president of the Gympie branch of the Labour Party and in 1893 he was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly as Labour member for Gympie. He lost his seat in 1896, but won it back in 1899. In that year he was Secretary for Railways and Public Works in the seven-day government of Anderson Dawson, the first parliamentary socialist government in the world. However Fisher was a firm federationist, supporting the union of the Australian colonies and campaigned for the 'Yes' vote in Queensland's 1899 referendum. In May, when he'd been in office for eight months, the Protectionists and Freetraders, combined into a "Fusion", ousted him from office and he failed to persuade the Governor-General Lord Dudley to dissolve Parliament.

High Commissioner

Fisher served as Australia's second High Commissioner in London from 1 January 1916 to 1 January 1921. Fisher opposed conscription which made his dealings with Billy Hughes difficult. Hughes asked Fisher for support by cable three weeks before the first referendum, but Fisher cabled back "Am unable to sign appeal. Position forbids." He subsequently refused to publicly comment on the issue. Hughes' 1916 and 1917 referendums on conscription both had a No majority of around one percent. Fisher visited Australian troops serving in Belgium and France in 1919, and later presented Pearce with an album of battlefield photos from 1917 and 1918, showing the horrendous conditions experienced by the troops.
The Dardanelles Commission, including Fisher, interviewed witnesses in 1916 and 1917 and issued its final report issued in 1919. It concluded that the expedition was poorly planned and executed and that difficulties had been underestimated, problems which were exacerbated by supply shortages and by personality clashes and procrastination at high levels. Some 480,000 Allied troops had been dedicated to the failed campaign, with around half in casualties. The report's conclusions were regarded as insipid with no figures (political or military) heavily censured. The report of the Commission and information gathered by the inquiry remain a key source of documents on the campaign.
Fisher wanted to continue to serve as High Commissioner in London when his term expired in 1921, but Hughes didn't permit it. Despite calls by some Labor supporters in Australia for Fisher to return to Australia and re-enter politics, he lived in London through retirement until his death in 1928 at South Hill Park, Hampstead. He is buried at Fortune Green Cemetery in West Hampstead.

Honours

At the end of the First World War, France awarded him the Légion d'honneur, but he declined it. The federal electorate of Fisher was named after him. The Canberra suburb of Fisher was also created in his memory, with its streets reflecting a mining theme in honour of Fisher's occupation before entering public life. A memorial was unveiled by Ramsay MacDonald, Britain's first Labour Prime Minister, in Hampstead Cemetery in 1930. A memorial garden was also dedicated to Fisher at his birthplace in the late 1970s.Further Information

Get more info on 'Andrew Fisher'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://andrew_fisher.totallyexplained.com">Andrew Fisher Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.