1. Sir George Foster Pearce KCVO was an Australian politician who served as a Senator for Western Australia from 1901 to 1938.
58 Facts About George Pearce
1. 2.
George Pearce began his career in the Labor Party but later joined the National Labor Party, the Nationalist Party, and the United Australia Party; he served as a cabinet minister under prime ministers from all four parties.
3.
George Pearce left school at the age of 11 and trained as a carpenter, later moving to Western Australia and becoming involved in the union movement.
4.
George Pearce continued on in cabinet when Billy Hughes became prime minister in 1915, and after the Labor Party split of 1916 followed Hughes to the National Labor Party and then to the Nationalists.
5.
George Pearce served in cabinet under Stanley Bruce and, after joining the UAP in 1931, Joseph Lyons.
6.
George Pearce was Minister for Defence from 1908 to 1909,1910 to 1913,1914 to 1921, and 1932 to 1934.
7.
George Pearce was born on 14 January 1870 in Mount Barker, South Australia.
8.
George Pearce was the fifth of eleven children born to Jane and James Pearce.
9.
George Pearce's father was a blacksmith of Cornish descent, born in the village of Altarnun, while his mother was born in London.
10.
An uncle, George Pearce, briefly served in the South Australian House of Assembly.
11.
George Pearce's mother died when he was ten years old, and he left school the following year by which time the family was living in Redhill.
12.
George Pearce began working as a farm labourer at the age of twelve in nearby Maitland.
13.
George Pearce took up a carpentry apprenticeship in Maitland in 1885, where he received free evening lessons from the local school headmaster.
14.
George Pearce moved to Adelaide after completing his apprenticeship, but lost his job in the early 1890s depression.
15.
In 1892, George Pearce moved to Western Australia where he found work as a carpenter in Perth.
16.
George Pearce had little success in prospecting and returned to Perth in 1895.
17.
In 1897 George Pearce nonetheless led a strike on building sites that led to him being blacklisted for several weeks.
18.
In 1893, George Pearce helped found the Progressive Political League, a precursor to the Western Australian branch of the ALP.
19.
George Pearce was elected to the Subiaco Municipal Council in 1898.
20.
George Pearce was selected as the labour candidate from Perth and was elected to a six-year Senate term at the March 1901 federal election.
21.
George Pearce joined the parliamentary Australian Labor Party on its formation in May 1901.
22.
George Pearce called for the nationalisation of natural monopolies, and in 1906 introduced an unsuccessful private member's bill to amend the constitution to that effect.
23.
George Pearce was one of the few free traders in the Labor Party in his first years in parliament, believing high tariff policies made imports more expensive for Western Australia and had few benefits given the state's limited secondary industries.
24.
George Pearce narrowly missed out on being a member of the first Labor Party cabinet when Chris Watson became Prime Minister in 1904.
25.
George Pearce was later Chairman of Committees in the Senate from 1907 to 1908.
26.
In 1908, George Pearce was elected to cabinet by the ALP caucus as a member of the first Fisher Ministry.
27.
George Pearce had long shown an interest in defence matters in the Senate and was chosen by Prime Minister Andrew Fisher to become Minister for Defence.
28.
George Pearce believed it was his duty as minister to accept "any reasonable expenditure on armament, ammunition, and accoutrements" recommended by his advisers and to resolve disagreements between sections of the military.
29.
George Pearce regained the defence portfolio in the second Fisher Ministry.
30.
George Pearce attended the 1911 Imperial Conference in London where the relationship between the Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy was determined.
31.
George Pearce oversaw the implementation of the Universal Service Scheme of compulsory military training scheme, and in 1912 approved the creation of the Central Flying School at Point Cook, Victoria, which became the "birthplace of Australian military aviation".
32.
In 1914, Australia entered World War I Upon Billy Hughes' ascension as Prime Minister, Pearce was named Deputy Leader of the party.
33.
George Pearce served as acting prime minister from January to August 1916, while Hughes was in England and France.
34.
George Pearce was the first senator to hold the position, and the only senator to do so until Bill Spooner in 1962.
35.
Outside of the defence portfolio, George Pearce oversaw the creation of Advisory Council of Science and Industry, the predecessor of the CSIRO, which Hughes had approved before his departure.
36.
George Pearce was convinced of the necessity of introducing conscription, but the majority of his party did not agree.
37.
In December 1918, following the signing of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 which ended World War I, it was announced that George Pearce would be sent to London to oversee the demobilisation and repatriation of Australian troops, although a separation Repatriation Department had been established in 1917 headed by Edward Millen.
38.
In London, George Pearce faced a number of challenges, including conflict with British authorities over the availability of troop transport ships.
39.
George Pearce returned to Australia the following month in time to campaign at the 1919 federal election.
40.
George Pearce approved the report's recommendations around the reorganisation of the Citizen Military Force and retention of compulsory military training, but rejected a proposal to amend the Defence Act to allow Australian soldiers to serve overseas as part of British expeditionary forces.
41.
George Pearce was the Australian representative at the Washington Naval Conference of 1921.
42.
George Pearce became the first Father of the Senate in 1923.
43.
George Pearce was appointed a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1927.
44.
In January 1932, following the UAP's victory at the 1931 election, George Pearce was appointed defence minister for a fourth time.
45.
George Pearce articulated the defence policies that he had supported throughout his career in a September 1933 speech to the Millions Club in Sydney: "an efficient Australian navy capable of operating with the Royal Navy; a well-equipped army based on a militia; a modern air force; armaments and munitions factories; and a closer defence relationship with New Zealand".
46.
George Pearce's speech attracted international attraction for its commitment to rearmament, a policy subsequently adopted by the United Kingdom and other dominions later in the 1930s.
47.
George Pearce was instead appointed Minister for External Affairs in October 1934, although he continued to maintain an interest in defence policy.
48.
George Pearce played no significant role in formulating policy, but helped establish his department as an institution in its own right, expanding the diplomatic corps and supporting the establishment of one of Australia's first foreign affairs journals, Current Notes on International Affairs.
49.
George Pearce later echoed Lyons' calls for a Pacific non-aggression treaty between the United States and Japan.
50.
George Pearce campaigned for the "No" vote in the 1933 Western Australian secession referendum, touring the state with Lyons and Tom Brennan for two weeks.
51.
George Pearce resigned as a minister after the election and spent the remainder of his term as a backbencher, concluding his service on 30 June 1938.
52.
George Pearce was a senator for 37 years and three months, a record term.
53.
George Pearce made no attempts to re-enter parliament after his defeat.
54.
George Pearce served on the Commonwealth Grants Commission from 1939 to 1944, and as chairman of the Defence Board of Business Administration from 1940 until it was abolished in 1947.
55.
George Pearce had lived mainly in Melbourne since entering the Senate, but co-owned a farm in Tenterden, Western Australia, with his son and visited regularly.
56.
George Pearce published an autobiography, Carpenter to Cabinet, in 1951, which had been written over a decade earlier.
57.
George Pearce died at his home in Elwood on 24 June 1952, aged 82.
58.
In 1897, George Pearce married Eliza Maud Barrett, a domestic servant, at Trinity Church, Perth.