68 Facts About Chris Watson

Chris Watson held office as the inaugural federal leader of the Australian Labor Party from 1901 to 1907 and was the first member of the party to serve as prime minister.

Chris Watson grew up on the South Island of New Zealand, taking the surname of his step-father when his Irish-born mother remarried.

Chris Watson left school at a young age, working in the printing industry as a compositor.

Chris Watson moved to Sydney in 1886 and became prominent in the local labour movement.

Chris Watson helped establish the Labor Electoral League of New South Wales and directed the party's campaign at the 1891 general election.

Chris Watson was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly at the 1894 election, aged 27, and quickly became a leading figure in the ALP.

In 1901, Chris Watson was elected to the House of Representatives at the inaugural federal election.

Chris Watson became a founding member of the ALP caucus in federal parliament and was elected as the party's inaugural leader.

Chris Watson formed a minority government in April 1904, aged 37, after the ALP withdrew its support from Deakin.

Chris Watson was one of the first socialists to head a government in a parliamentary system, attracting international attention, and remains Australia's youngest prime minister.

Chris Watson was leader of the opposition until 1905, when he helped reinstall Deakin as prime minister.

Chris Watson resigned the party's leadership in 1907, citing family concerns, and left parliament at the 1910 election.

Chris Watson was expelled from the ALP during the 1916 split over conscription and became a Nationalist, although he never again stood for public office.

Chris Watson subsequently had a successful business career, including as president of the NRMA and chairman of Ampol.

Chris Watson was born Johan Cristian Tanck on 9 April 1867 in Valparaiso, Chile.

Chris Watson was the only child of Martha and Johan Cristian Tanck, senior.

Chris Watson worked as a merchant seaman, possibly a ship's carpenter, on trade routes across the Pacific.

Chris Watson arrived in New Zealand aboard La Joven Julia on 24 December 1865 and married Martha Minchin in Port Chalmers less than a month later, on 19 January 1866.

Chris Watson's mother was born in County Tipperary, Ireland, and was 16 years old at the time of her marriage to Tanck.

Chris Watson joined him on board the Julia, which eventually returned to Chile and docked in Valparaiso a few days before Watson's birth.

In 1868, Chris Watson moved to New Zealand with his mother, returning to her family on the South Island.

Chris Watson's second husband was a 30-year-old miner born in Ballymoney, Ireland, who had come to New Zealand after several years working in Scotland.

Chris Watson came to have nine half-siblings from his mother's second marriage, born between 1869 and 1887.

Chris Watson was treated as the biological child of George Watson, adopting his step-father's surname; his given names were anglicised.

Chris Watson allowed some biographical profiles to list him as born in New Zealand, while his second wife and daughter understood that he had been born to British parents in international waters outside Valparaiso.

Chris Watson attended the state school in Oamaru, North Otago, New Zealand until ten years of age when he left to become a rail nipper.

Chris Watson worked for a month as a stablehand at Government House, then found employment as a compositor for a number of newspapers including The Daily Telegraph, Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Star.

Chris Watson married Ada Jane Low, a British-born Sydney seamstress, at the Unitarian Church on Liverpool Street in Sydney on 27 November 1889.

Chris Watson was an active trade unionist, and became vice-president of the Sydney Trades and Labour Council in January 1892.

At the 1894 colonial election which saw the defeat of the Protectionist Party government, Chris Watson was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for the country seat of Young.

Labour at this time had a policy of "support in return for concessions", and Chris Watson voted with his colleagues to strategically provide such legislative support to the incumbent government.

Chris Watson was involved in shaping party policy regarding the movement for Federation from 1895, and was one of ten Labour candidates nominated for the Australasian Federal Convention on 4 March 1897, but none of these candidates managed to be elected.

Chris Watson was devoted to the idea of the referendum as an ideal feature of democracy.

Labour leaders, including Chris Watson opposed the final terms of the Commonwealth Constitution.

Nevertheless, Chris Watson joined all but two of the Labour parliamentarians in campaigning against the 'Yes' vote at the referendum.

Chris Watson was elected to the new federal Parliament of Australia at the inaugural 1901 federal election, representing the rural House of Representatives rural seat of Bland.

Chris Watson arrived in Melbourne, which at the time served as the temporary seat of government, in May 1901.

Chris Watson was elected the first leader of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party on 8 May 1901, the day before the opening of the parliament.

Chris Watson pursued the same policy as Labor had done in New South Wales, where Labor was the smallest of the three parties but held the balance of power.

Under Chris Watson, Labor provided confidence and supply to the Protectionist Party minority governments of Edmund Barton and Alfred Deakin in exchange for legislation enacting the Labour platform, such as the immensely popular White Australia policy which left the free Trade Party led by George Reid to form the opposition.

Chris Watson was a white nationalist and white supremacist who played a key role in the creation of the White Australia policy.

Chris Watson opposed the government's dictation test provision on the grounds that it could be easily circumvented, and that "education does not eliminate the objectionable qualities of the Baboo Hindoo".

Chris Watson instead sought to explicitly ban any Asian or African from entering Australia.

In 1905, Chris Watson drafted a new plank for the ALP platform calling for "an Australian sentiment based upon the maintenance of racial purity".

Chris Watson successfully moved for its adoption at both state and federal conferences, stating that the party should "cleanse their own doorstep with the hope that thus the street would be cleansed".

Labour under Chris Watson doubled their vote at the 1903 federal election and continued to hold the balance of power despite all three parties holding about the same number of seats.

Reid declined to take office, which saw Chris Watson become the first Labour Prime Minister of Australia, the world's first Labour head of government at a national level, indeed the world's first socialist or social democratic government at a national level.

Chris Watson was aged only 37, and remains the youngest prime minister in Australia's history.

Chris Watson had dressed for the part; his Vandyke beard was exquisitely groomed, his abundant brown hair smoothly brushed.

Chris Watson was the perfect picture of the statesman, the leader.

The most significant legislative achievement of the Chris Watson government was the advancement of the troublesome Conciliation and Arbitration Bill.

Once he became the Prime Minister Chris Watson recognised the limitations of his position in the Labour caucus and endorsed the concept of a deputy leader.

Unable to command a majority in the House of Representatives, Chris Watson resigned the premiership less than four months after taking office, his term ending on 18 August 1904.

Chris Watson led Labour to the 1906 federal election and improved their position again.

From August 1906, Chris Watson was an early influential supporter of Canberra, as the site of the national capital.

Chris Watson retired from politics, aged only 42, prior to the 1910 federal election, at which Labour won with 50 percent of the primary vote.

Chris Watson sided with ex-Labor Prime Minister Billy Hughes and the conscriptionists and had his party membership terminated as a result.

Chris Watson remained active in the affairs of Hughes' Nationalist Party until 1922, but after that he drifted out of politics altogether.

In December 1910, Chris Watson was recruited by a syndicate of Sydney businessmen to lead a gold-seeking expedition in South Africa.

Chris Watson engaged in land speculation in Sutherland, but development did not occur rapidly enough.

Chris Watson was appointed as a director of Labor Papers Limited, the publisher of the AWU's official newspaper The Australian Worker.

Chris Watson joined the council of the newly established National Roads Association in March 1920, and in August was elected as the association's inaugural president.

Chris Watson was able to attract publicity through the launch of a magazine and a successful campaign to raise speed limits.

Chris Watson was again chosen as president in 1923 when the NRA was reorganised into the NRMA, and would retain the position for the rest of his life.

Chris Watson was a 23-year-old waitress from Western Australia whom he had met when she served his table at a Sydney club.

Chris Watson visited the United States for business reasons and returned to New Zealand on a number of occasions in a private capacity.

Chris Watson was granted a state funeral at St Andrew's Cathedral, with Joseph Cook, Albert Gardiner, John Curtin and William McKell serving as pallbearers.

Chris Watson's ashes were interred at the Northern Suburbs Crematorium.