Charles Edward Frazer was an Australian politician.
28 Facts About Charlie Frazer
1.
2.
Charlie Frazer served in the House of Representatives from 1903 until his death from pneumonia in 1913, aged 33.
3.
Charlie Frazer was born on 2 January 1880 at Pelluebla, a rural locality south of Yarrawonga, Victoria.
4.
Charlie Frazer was named after "Bonnie Prince Charlie", Charles Edward Stuart.
5.
Charlie Frazer was the youngest of nine children born to Susannah Atkinson and James Frazer.
6.
Charlie Frazer had three older brothers and four older sisters, with another sister dying as an infant.
7.
Charlie Frazer's mother was born in Melbourne, while his father was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and arrived in Australia in 1852 during the Victorian gold rush.
8.
Charlie Frazer grew up on his father's property of 248 acres, where the family lived in wattle and daub huts.
9.
Charlie Frazer received his only formal education at the Pelluebla South State School, a one-room school that had become overcrowded due to the large size of families in the area.
10.
Charlie Frazer was unwilling to move with them, having come to dislike the monotony of farm work.
11.
Charlie Frazer made up his mind to move across the country to Western Australia, where gold had been found two years earlier; as a child he had been fascinated by his father's recollections of the 1850s gold rush.
12.
Charlie Frazer arrived in Fremantle a few months after his 15th birthday, travelling via Sydney.
13.
Charlie Frazer subsequently worked on the extension of the Eastern Goldfields Railway from Southern Cross to Kalgoorlie.
14.
Charlie Frazer settled in Kalgoorlie's twin town Boulder after the line was completed.
15.
Charlie Frazer invested his earnings in part-ownership of a Boulder hotel.
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Charlie Frazer was elected as president of his branch of his union in 1902 and secretary of the Goldfields Trades and Labor Council in 1903.
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In November 1902, Charlie Frazer was elected to Kalgoorlie Municipal Council.
18.
In September 1903, Charlie Frazer won ALP preselection for the Division of Kalgoorlie, defeating two other candidates.
19.
Charlie Frazer had won a large majority at the inaugural 1901 election and had the support of the Kalgoorlie Miner and Western Argus.
20.
Charlie Frazer defeated Kirwan by nearly 3,000 votes, polling almost two-thirds of the total.
21.
Charlie Frazer won a majority of over 5,000 votes and 79 percent of the overall vote, the largest proportion of any candidate nationwide.
22.
The incumbent ALP member for Coolgardie, Hugh Mahon, was defeated in Dampier, but Charlie Frazer retained the enlarged Kalgoorlie constituency unopposed.
23.
Charlie Frazer worked closely with Douglas Mawson to assist in the success of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition.
24.
Charlie Frazer was a strong supporter for a uniform stamp for all of Australia, which was still using the old colonial issues.
25.
Charlie Frazer caught influenza while in Perth in April 1913, and while campaigning a few weeks later suffered a relapse which developed into pneumonia.
26.
Charlie Frazer was confined to hospital in Leonora for a week, taking another three weeks to fully recover.
27.
Charlie Frazer was examined by a doctor and found to be suffering from severe pneumonia of the left lung.
28.
Charlie Frazer was granted a state funeral and buried beside his mother at Melbourne General Cemetery.