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Speaker, 23 October 1934 to 21 September 1937; 30 November 1937 to 27 August 1940
Nationalist Party, 1919 to 1931;
United Australia Party, 1931 to 1943
George Bell (1872-1944), Australia’s ninth Speaker, presided over a lively and divided Chamber. Despite strong opposition to his appointment, he endeavoured to be a fair and impartial Presiding Officer.1
Born in Sale, Victoria, Bell was the eldest son of George and Catherine Bell. His mother died when he was five, and his father, left with five young children, soon remarried. Bell attended local state schools and helped on his father’s farm. In 1892 he joined the military, and later served in the South African War. On his return, he grazed cattle in north-western Tasmania. During World War I, he served with the Light Horse Regiment and was considered an exceptional leader.2 He was demobilised in 1919 and returned to his Tasmanian properties. He married Ellen Rothwell later that year, and they had five children.
A well-known local man with an impressive war record, Bell was encouraged to stand for the federal seat of Darwin, Tasmania, in 1919, winning the seat narrowly for the Nationalist Party. He was defeated at the following election. He regained the seat of Darwin in 1925 and retained it comfortably for the next six elections, the last four as a UAP candidate.
In Parliament, Bell focused on addressing inadequate national defence and support for ex-servicemen. He became Chairman of Committees in 1932, a job made difficult by some members’ lingering bitterness after a split in the ALP. Bell’s impartiality was questioned when his decisions appeared to favour government members over opposition members.
The Speakership became vacant in 1934 when Speaker George Mackay resigned, and Bell was nominated for the role. Members opposed to his election sought to disrupt the vote by refusing to co-operate with the Clerk and delivering long speeches.3 After scenes ‘unparalleled in the history of the federal Parliament’, Bell was declared Speaker.4
Though Bell continued to clash with some Opposition members, he strove for fairness and was prepared to rule against the government.5 During debate on changes to the process of electing the Speaker, Maurice Blackburn, a Labor member, assured Bell he had ‘discharged the duties of [his] high office with absolute impartiality and very high ability indeed’.6 Bell was re-elected unopposed following the 1937 election.
In 1940, Bell announced that he would not nominate as Speaker after the coming election. With Australia at war again, he said he preferred to be ‘free to join in every discussion
when I think that my views should be expressed freely’.7 Bell continued to be active in Parliament and pursued Tasmanian interests through committee work. Troubled by poor health, he retired in 1943 and, on 5 March 1944, died of coronary vascular disease.
Duncan Max Meldrum
Artist Max Meldrum (1875-1955) was born in Edinburgh and arrived in Melbourne in 1889. He attended the National Gallery of Victoria Art School where he studied painting with Bernard Hall. In 1899, he won a travelling scholarship and studied at the Académie Colarossi in Paris. The following year Meldrum studied at the Académie Julian and later exhibited at the Salon de la Société des Artistes Français (Paris). During this time, he became an associate of the Société Nationale des Beaux- Arts (Paris). In 1912, Meldrum returned to Melbourne where he set up his studio and art school on Collins Street. Among his students were Clarice Beckett and Arnold Shore and he was a great influence on his friend, Archibald Colquhoun. Meldrum was a foundation member of the Australian Art Association in 1912 and was elected president of the Victorian Artists’ Society from 1916 to 1917. A regular exhibitor in Melbourne and Sydney, Meldrum also exhibited with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in London. Regarded as the father of Australian tonalism, Meldrum’s representational style won him the Archibald Prize in 1939 and 1940.8
George John Bell
by Duncan Max Meldrum
1938
Oil on canvas
92.8 x 72 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection
References
1.Bell, Sir George John (1872–1944)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1979; S Petrow, ‘Bell, Sir George John (1872– 1944)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 2021. Websites accessed 30 August 2021.
2. FM Blackwell and DR Douglas, The story of the 3rd Australian Light Horse Regiment, Third Light Horse Regimental Club, Adelaide, 1950, p. 55.
3. ‘Election of Speaker’, House of Representatives, Debates, 23 October 1934, pp. 18–32.
4. 'Angry scenes: House elects Col. Bell Speaker’, The Examiner (Launceston, Tasmania), 24 October 1934, p. 6, accessed 28 July 2021.
5. See for example, ‘Allotment of time (Pensions Insurance Bill 1938),’ House of Representatives, Debates, 15 June 1938, pp. 2125–28. During this debate, Bell ‘named’ the Acting Minister for Health, who was then suspended from the service of the House for 24 hours.
6. M Blackburn, ‘Amendment of Standing Orders: Election of Speaker’, House of Representatives, Debates, 15 September 1937, pp. 1144.
7. ‘Election Campaign: Col. Bell in Circular Head’, The Circular Head Chronicle, 11 September 1940, p. 4, accessed 28 July 2021.
8. J McGrath and B Smith, ‘Meldrum, Duncan Max (1875–1955)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1986, accessed 15 April 2021; ‘Meldrum, Duncan Max’, 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, pp. 674–75.