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President, 1 July 1910 to 8 July 1913
Australian Labor Party
The first Labor President of the Senate, Joseph Henry Lewis (Harry) Turley (1859-1929) was born at Barton St Michael, Gloucester, England and became a sailor at the age of 13. Arriving in Brisbane in 1879, he worked as a wharf labourer and trade unionist before his election to the Queensland Parliament (1893-1902) and then the Senate (1904-17).
Having ‘never done anything but heavy work’, Turley was soon employed on the wharfs and active in the Wharf Labourers’ Union, becoming union secretary and then president.1 He helped coordinate the maritime and shearers’ strikes of 1890 and 1891, the failure of which contributed to the formation of the ALP in the 1890s.2
In 1893, Turley was elected to the seat of South Brisbane in the Queensland Legislative Assembly. Defeated at the 1899 election, he won the seat back just a few months later in a by-election by a margin of three votes. That same year, he was appointed Home Secretary in the short-lived Dawson minority government, the first Labor government in the world. Setting his sights on federal Parliament, Turley unsuccessfully contested the seat of Oxley in 1901, before he was elected to the Senate in 1903.3
Turley quickly established a reputation as a hardworking parliamentarian, both in the Senate and back in Queensland, where he covered great distances by bicycle to meet constituents.4 Outspoken on industrial relations, he used his position in the Senate to advocate for improved wages and conditions and the protection of jobs through immigration restrictions. With the onset of World War I, he railed against conscription, an issue which divided the ALP and cost Turley his seat at the 1917 election.
After serving as a Temporary Chair of Committees in 1909, Turley became President of the Senate in 1910 following the election of the Fisher Labor Government. An unpretentious man, he discarded the wig and gown traditionally worn by the President. Regarded as being fair, if at times pedantic in the chair, he maintained firm discipline and was the first President to suspend senators from the chamber.5 Turley stepped down in 1913 in line with an ALP caucus decision that restricted senators to one term as President.6
After his electoral defeat, Turley tried to re-enter Parliament twice but without success. He was appointed shipping master in the Queensland Harbours and Rivers Department in 1919. When that post was abolished two years later, he became a storeman with the Mercantile Marine office, working there until his sudden death in 1929. He was survived by his wife Mary and four children.7
Harley Cameron Griffiths (Snr)
Painter Harley Griffiths (Snr) (1878-1951) was born in Brighton, Victoria, and studied under Bernard Hall and Frederick McCubbin at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School (1894-99). A bookkeeper by profession, Griffiths had begun exhibiting his art by 1905 and became a regular exhibitor of landscapes, still-lifes and portraits with the NSW Society of Artists. He shared a studio with Max Meldrum in Melbourne in 1914 and he was also a joint manager of the Fine Arts Society, Sydney, with Julian Ashton and Hardy Wilson from 1911 to 1914. His work was included in the exhibition
150 Years of Australian Art held in Sydney in 1938. In 1944, Griffiths was a finalist of the prestigious Wynne Prize for landscape painting. His works are held in several Australian public collections and the Wellington Gallery in New Zealand.
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Joseph Henry Lewis Turley
by Harley Cameron Griffiths (Snr)
1914
Oil on canvas
228 x 135.5 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collections
References
1. H Turley, ‘Referendum: ANZAC Votes’, Senate, Debates, 14 March 1917, p. 11421.
2. Unless otherwise noted, information is sourced from Parliamentary Library, ‘Turley, the Hon. Henry’, Parliamentary Handbook Online; G Browne, ‘Turley, Joseph Henry Lewis (1859–1929)’, The Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate Online Edition, Department of the Senate, Parliament of Australia, published first in hardcopy 2000; BF Stevenson, ‘Turley, Joseph Henry Lewis (1859–1929)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1990; Defining Moments: ALP forms’, National Museum of Australia. Websites accessed 28 May 2021.
3. R Fitzgerald, ‘First Labor premier Anderson Dawson’s short, inglorious reign’, The Australian, 1 December 2012; Browne, op. cit.
4. ‘A Record of Current Events’, The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 13 July 1910, p. 29, accessed 23 August 2021; Browne, op. cit.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.; Stevenson, op. cit.
8. ‘Griffiths, Harley’, A McCulloch, S McCulloch and E McCulloch Childs, eds, The New McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Aus Art Editions in association with The Miegunyah Press, 2006, p. 483; ‘Harley Cameron Griffiths, Senior’, Australian and New Zealand Art Sales Digest; Commonwealth of Australia, Electoral Roll, Victoria, Kooyong/Caulfield, 1903, p. 8; ‘Federal Art Exhibition’, The Advertiser, 9 November 1905, p. 9. Websites accessed 29 April 2021.