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Speaker, 22 June 1943 to 7 July 1943; 23 September 1943 to 16 August 1946; 6 November 1946 to 31 October 1949
Lang Labor Party, 1931 to 1936
Australian Labor Party, 1936 to 1940
Australian Labor Party (non-Communist), 1940 to 1943
Australian Labor Party, 1943 to 1953
John Solomon (Sol) Rosevear (1892-1953), 11th Speaker of the House of Representatives, was one of the most controversial holders of the office, regularly accused of partisanship and sometimes participating robustly in debate.1
He was born in Pyrmont, Sydney, the sixth of seven children to Australian-born parents. Leaving school at 14, Rosevear began work in a timber mill. By 1912 he was on the managing committee of his union and the following year he was a delegate to the conference that formed the Amalgamated Timber Workers’ Union of Australia. In 1916 he married Clara White, a machinist and they had two children.
In 1931, following the expulsion of the NSW branch of the Labor Party at the federal conference earlier that year, Rosevear won the federal seat of Dalley in Sydney for the breakaway group loyal to NSW Premier Jack Lang. He defeated the sitting member, who had the endorsement of the federal ALP. Rosevear sat in the House with the ‘Langites’ until they reunited with the federal ALP in 1936. When a further split occurred in 1940 he was elected deputy leader of the ALP (non-Communist).
When Labor reunited in 1941 and came to power under John Curtin, Rosevear failed to secure a post in Cabinet, possibly because of hostility in caucus to his having joined the breakaway group in 1940. He was regarded as one of the ablest performers in the House but was also noted for his ferocity in debate.
Rosevear became Speaker in June 1943, following the resignation of Walter Nairn. He continued to involve himself in the internal affairs of his party and took an overbearing approach in the chair. He gained a reputation for inflexibility in his rulings and was regularly accused of lacking impartiality. In moving a no-confidence motion in Rosevear in 1946, the Leader of the Opposition declared that he had ‘never seen such a gratuitous abuse of power on the part of any presiding officer’.2
He also took the opportunity to speak in debate when the House was in committee and the Chairman of Committees was presiding. In 1946 he gave a ferocious speech against his former ally, Lang. In 1947, following the High Court’s decision invalidating part of the Banking Act 1945, he attacked judges of the court during consideration of the Banking Bill 1947. He continued to play an influential role in caucus although a number of back benchers were concerned by his attacks on the High Court and by the impact of his obvious partisanship.
Rosevear lost the Speakership with the Chifley Government’s defeat in 1949 but remained a member of Parliament until his death in 1953. His wife and their son and daughter survived him.
William Joshua Smith
Sydney-born William Joshua Smith (1905-1995) studied drawing, painting and sculpture at East Sydney Technical College and the Sydney Art School, and became an exhibiting member of the NSW Society of Artists in the 1930s. During World War II he worked for the Civil Constructional Corps as a camouflage artist with fellow artists Douglas Annand, William Dobell, and Donald Friend. Smith won the Archibald Prize in 1944 for his portrait of Speaker Rosevear. In 1953, he became a fellow of the Royal Art Society of NSW and from 1967 to 1972 taught portraiture there before setting up his own school in Lane Cove. He continued to paint portraits for commissions and competitions as well as landscapes and other works. His work is represented in major state galleries and the Manly Art Gallery held a retrospective of his work in 2005-06.
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John Solomon Rosevear
by William Josha Smith
1944
Oil on canvas
100 x 80.4 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collections
References
1. Information in this biography has been taken from the following unless otherwise sourced: F Bongiorno, ‘Rosevear, John Solomon (Sol) (1892–1953)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 2021, accessed 16 June 2021; G Souter, Acts of Parliament: A Narrative History of the Senate and House of Representatives Commonwealth of Australia, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1988.
2. R Menzies, ‘Mr. Speaker: Motion of want of confidence’, House of Representatives, Debates, 26 July 1946, p. 3198.
3. E Riddler, ‘Smith, William Joshua (1905–1995)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 2019; FWD Rost, ‘Joshua Smith b. 1905’, Design & Art Australia Online, 2011; ‘Smith, Joshua (William Joshua)’, 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. 895. Websites accessed 26 March 2021.