Alfred Deakin

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Alfred Deakin

Alfred Deakin (born August 3, 1856 in Melbourne , Australia , † October 7, 1919 ibid) was a politician of the Protectionist Party and three-time Prime Minister of Australia.

biography

Alfred Deakin, born in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy , was the youngest of two children of William Deakin and Sarah Bill , who emigrated from England to Adelaide in 1849 . He attended a primary school of the Anglican Church in Melbourne and then the University of Melbourne , where he studied law, in 1878 he was admitted to the bar. Since he found little work in his job, he worked as a journalist for a newspaper. He maintained his interest in journalism throughout his life and wrote regularly, but anonymously, for the Morning Post in London during his later political career . There he spoke about Australian politics and advocated a protective tariff policy that he could only enforce with the help of the Australian Labor Party .

As a representative of the West Bourke electoral district , he got a seat in the colonial parliament of Victoria in 1880 , which he kept until 1889. As a federation advocate, he was appointed as a member of his first cabinet by Edmund Barton , Australia's first Prime Minister, and was appointed attorney general, which he retained throughout Barton's reign.

He was the second Prime Minister of Australia and was appointed three times, namely

  • from September 24, 1903 to April 27, 1904,
  • from July 5, 1905 to November 13, 1908 and
  • from June 2, 1909 to April 29, 1910.

In his first and second terms as prime minister, he also held the position of foreign minister. From 1904 to 1905 he was the leader of the opposition in parliament.

Deakin married Pattie Brown in 1882, with whom he had 3 children. Around 1891 he joined the Theosophical Society (TG) and was a founding member of a theosophical lodge in South Yarra. Above all, his interest in Buddhism was decisive for joining, when the TG turned more and more to other religions in the following years, Deakin resigned from the TG in 1896.

Deakin died on October 7, 1919 in Melbourne's South Yarra district . Deakin University in Melbourne and Geelong , founded in 1974, is named after him. He is also the namesake for Mount Deakin , a mountain in the Transantarctic Mountains , and for Deakin Bay , a bay on the East Antarctic George V coast .

Works

  • Federated Australia. Selections from Letters to the "Morning Post", 1900-10 , ed. by JA La Nauze, Melbourne University Publishing, Melbourne 1968, ISBN 0-522-83842-1 .

literature

  • Alfred J. Gabay: The Mystic Life of Alfred Deakin. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1993, ISBN 0-521-41494-6 .
  • Judith Brett: Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class. From Alfred Deakin to John Howard. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2003, ISBN 0-521-53634-0 .

Web links

Commons : Alfred Deakin  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ^ A short history of Buddhism in Australia ( Memento of February 9, 2002 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Connecting Asia and Australia ( Memento of March 30, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Deakin, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian politician and prime minister
DATE OF BIRTH August 3, 1856
PLACE OF BIRTH Melbourne , Australia
DATE OF DEATH October 7, 1919
Place of death Melbourne , Australia