84 Facts About John Forrest

Sir John Forrest was an Australian explorer and politician.

John Forrest was the first premier of Western Australia and a long-serving cabinet minister in federal politics.

John Forrest was the colony's first locally born surveyor, coming to public notice in 1869 when he led an expedition into the interior in search of Ludwig Leichhardt.

John Forrest's expeditions were characterised by a cautious, well-planned approach and diligent record-keeping.

John Forrest received the Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1876.

John Forrest became involved in politics through his promotion to surveyor-general, a powerful position that entitled him to a seat on the colony's executive council.

John Forrest was appointed as Western Australia's first premier in 1890, following the granting of responsible government.

John Forrest's government passed a number of social reforms, maintaining power through several elections in an era before formal political parties.

In 1901, John Forrest was invited to join Prime Minister Edmund Barton's inaugural federal cabinet.

John Forrest was a member of all but one non-Labor government over the following two decades, serving as Postmaster-General, Minister for Defence, Minister for Home Affairs, and Treasurer.

John Forrest helped shape Australia's early defence and financial policies, lobbying for the construction of the Trans-Australian Railway, a pet project.

John Forrest served briefly as acting prime minister in 1907 and in 1913 was defeated for the leadership of the Liberal Party by a single vote.

John Forrest was nominated to the peerage in 1918 by Prime Minister Billy Hughes, but died on his way to England before the appointment could be confirmed.

John Forrest was born on 22 August 1847 on his father's property 2 miles outside of Bunbury, Western Australia.

John Forrest was the fourth of ten children and third of nine sons born to Margaret and William Forrest.

John Forrest built a windmill and a small house, where John was born.

John Forrest attended the school for four years, winning several prizes for arithmetic.

In November 1863, aged 16, John Forrest took up an apprenticeship with Thomas Campbell Carey, the government surveyor at Bunbury.

John Forrest was a skilled horseman and able to endure long periods in the bush without access to fresh meat and vegetables.

John Forrest was the first person born in Western Australia to qualify as a surveyor.

John Forrest's position was made permanent in July 1866, and he spent most of the next two years in the Avon Valley.

On 2 September 1876 in Perth, John Forrest married Margaret Elvire Hamersley.

The Hamersleys were a very wealthy family, and John Forrest gained substantially in wealth and social standing from the marriage.

Between 1869 and 1874, John Forrest led three expeditions into the uncharted land surrounding the colony of Western Australia.

John Forrest published an account of his expeditions, Explorations in Australia, in 1875.

In March 1869, John Forrest was asked to lead an expedition in search of Leichhardt, who had been missing since April 1848.

Since it was thought that these stories might refer to Leichhardt's party, John Forrest was asked to lead a party to the site, with Mungaro as their guide and there to search for evidence of Leichhardt's fate.

John Forrest assembled a party of six, including the Aboriginal trackers Mungaro and Tommy Windich, and they left Perth on 15 April 1869.

John Forrest's team accompanied this group in a more northerly direction, but after a week of travelling it became clear that their destination was Poison Rock, where the explorer Robert Austin was known to have left eleven of his horses for dead in 1854.

However, John Forrest did report that his compass had been affected by the presence of minerals in the ground, and he suggested that the government send geologists to examine the area.

Later that year, John Forrest was selected to lead an expedition that would survey a land route along the Great Australian Bight between the colonies of South Australia and Western Australia.

John Forrest's brief was to provide a proper survey of the route, which might be used in future to establish a telegraph link between the colonies and to assess the suitability of the land for pasture.

John Forrest's team consisted of six men his brother Alexander was second in charge, Police constable Hector Neil McLarty, farrier William Osborn, trackers Tommy Windich and Billy Noongale ; 15 horses.

John Forrest's bight crossing was one of the most organised and best managed expeditions of his time.

Plenty of good pastoral land was found up to the head of the Murchison, but beyond that, the land was useless for pastoral enterprise, and John Forrest was convinced that it would never be settled.

John Forrest made botanical collections during the expedition that were given to Ferdinand von Mueller, who, in turn, named Eremophila forrestii in his honour.

In 1875, John Forrest published Explorations in Australia, an account of his three expeditions.

John Forrest was made a CMG by Queen Victoria in 1882 for his services in exploring the interior.

John Forrest was an outstanding surveyor, and his successful expeditions had made him a popular public figure as well.

John Forrest invited further criticism in 1893 with his infamous "spoils to the victors" speech, in which he appeared to assert that members who opposed the government were putting at risk their constituents' access to their fair share of public works.

John Forrest's government implemented a number of social reforms, including measures to improve the status of women, young girls and wage-earners.

However, although John Forrest did not always oppose proposals for social reform, he never instigated or championed them.

Critics have therefore argued that John Forrest deserves little credit for the social reforms achieved under his premiership.

In 1893, John Forrest guided through parliament a number of significant amendments to the Constitution of Western Australia, including an extension of the franchise to all men regardless of property ownership.

John Forrest was in favour of federation, and felt that it was inevitable, but he felt that Western Australia should not join until it obtained fair terms.

John Forrest fought hard to protect the rights of the less populous states, arguing for a strong upper house organised along state lines.

John Forrest pressed for a number of concessions to Western Australia, managing to secure the phasing out of Western Australian tariffs instead of their immediate abolition, but failing to secure the construction of a trans-Australian railway.

John Forrest decided on a referendum, a large majority of Western Australians voted to join the federation, and in 1901 Western Australia was an "original state" of the new Commonwealth of Australia.

On 30 December 1900, John Forrest accepted the position of Postmaster-General in Edmund Barton's federal caretaker government.

John Forrest was postmaster-general for only 17 days: he resigned to take up the defence portfolio, which had been made vacant by the death of Sir James Dickson.

John Forrest held the defence portfolio for over two years.

John Forrest moved to the crossbenches, where he was a scathing critic of the Labour government's policies and legislation.

John Forrest served as acting prime minister from 18 to 26 June 1907, as both Deakin and Lyne were in London attending imperial conferences.

John Forrest began to feel that his reputation in Western Australia and his personal standing in cabinet were being undermined.

John Forrest was very disappointed, especially since Deakin, whom he considered a friend, had voted against him.

John Forrest retained his seat, but the Liberal Party was soundly defeated and John Forrest was again relegated to the crossbenches.

John Forrest immediately declared himself a candidate for the position, but the Governor-General found that John Forrest did not have the numbers and so asked Hughes to form government again.

John Forrest had a rodent ulcer removed from his left temple in January 1915, which was initially thought to be non-malignant.

John Forrest had a third operation in January 1918, after which he was hospitalised for nearly two weeks.

John Forrest spent a month recuperating in Healesville; on a visit to the Melbourne Club during this time he was found to weigh 17 stone.

John Forrest resigned from the ministry on 21 March 1918, on the advice of his doctors.

On 7 February 1918, John Forrest was informed by the Governor-General that he would be raised to the Peerage of the United Kingdom as a baron.

John Forrest would have been the first Australian peer, and the announcement was received critically from those opposed to the granting of hereditary honours, including many of Hughes' former ALP colleagues.

However, John Forrest's peerage was never formalised, as no letters patent were issued before his death.

John Forrest's barony is not listed in The Complete Peerage.

John Forrest hoped to take his seat in the House of Lords if his health permitted.

John Forrest left Albany aboard the troopship Marathon on 30 July 1918.

John Forrest died at sea on 2 September 1918, three hours away from Freetown, Sierra Leone.

John Forrest was initially interred at the military cemetery in Freetown.

John Forrest's body was brought back to Western Australia and buried at Karrakatta Cemetery on 7 May 1919.

John Forrest's death occasioned the 1918 Swan by-election, which saw the 22-year-old ALP candidate Edwin Corboy become Australia's youngest member of parliament, a record not broken until 2010.

John Forrest was fond of pomp and ceremony and insisted on being treated with respect at all times.

John Forrest had very little sense of humour and was greatly offended when a journalist playfully referred to him as the "Commissioner for Crown Sands".

John Forrest was a very popular figure who treated everyone he met with politeness and dignity.

John Forrest was renowned for his memory for names and faces and for his prolific letter-writing.

John Forrest took a paternalistic and patronising attitude toward Indigenous Australians.

John Forrest supported assimilation policies and his views were considered liberal by contemporary Western Australian standards.

John Forrest further described Aboriginal people in an 1892 address to the National History Society as "in the same category as Marsupialia in having a very low degree of intelligence", but was impressed with their complex traditions and hoped they would be recorded before the race "died out".

John Forrest was appointed to the board in 1890, by which time it had been given a fixed percentage of the colony's annual revenue in the newly granted constitution.

John Forrest was strongly opposed to the financial provisions and after becoming premier sought to amend the constitution to remove them.

John Forrest spent several years lobbying the British government for approval, which was eventually granted in 1897 and saw Aboriginal affairs return to the control of the colonial government.

The John Forrest Highway, opened in September 2009, was named after him.

John Forrest is one of many railroad builders featured as a possible computer-controlled competitor in the simulation game Railroad Tycoon 3.

The Lord John Forrest Hotel opened in Bunbury in 1986 even though he was never correctly known by that name.