Ted Theodore

The Honourable Ted Theodore
Premier of Queensland
In office 22 October 1919 – 26 February 1925
Governor	Hamilton Goold-Adams Matthew Nathan
Preceded by	T. J. Ryan
Succeeded by	William Gillies
Treasurer of Australia
In office 22 October 1929 – 8 July 1930
Prime Minister	James Scullin
Preceded by	Dr Earle Page
Succeeded by	James Scullin
In office 29 January 1931 – 5 January 1932
Prime Minister	James Scullin
Preceded by	James Scullin
Succeeded by	Joseph Lyons
Treasurer of Queensland
In office 1 June 1915 – 9 March 1920
Premier	T. J. Ryan Himself
Preceded by	Walter Barnes
Succeeded by	John Fihelly
In office 8 February 1922 – 26 February 1925
Premier	Himself
Preceded by	John Fihelly
Succeeded by	William Gillies
Member of the Australian House of Representatives
In office 18 January 1927 – 19 December 1931
Preceded by	Walter Barnes
Succeeded by	Sol Rosevear
Constituency	Dalley
Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly
In office 27 April 1912 – 22 September 1925
Preceded by	New seat
Succeeded by	John O'Keefe
Constituency	Woothakata
In office 2 October 1909 – 27 April 1912
Preceded by	Michael Woods
Succeeded by	Seat abolished
Constituency	Chillagoe
Personal details
Born	Edward Granville Theodore (1884-12-29)29 December 1884 Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Died	9 February 1950(1950-02-09) (aged 65) Edgecliff, New South Wales, Australia
Resting place	South Head Cemetery
Political party	Labor
Spouse(s)	Esther Mahoney (m. 1909)
Relations	Stephen Theodore (brother)

Edward Granville Theodore (29 December 1884 – 9 February 1950), nicknamed Red Ted, was an Australian politician who served as Premier of Queensland from 1919 to 1925, as leader of the state Labor Party. He later entered federal politics, serving as Treasurer in the Labor Scullin Government.

Theodore was born in Adelaide, the son of a Romanian immigrant. He left school at the age of 12, and spent the next decade working his way around the country. He arrived in Queensland in 1906, and soon became involved in the labour movement. Theodore was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly in 1909, aged just 24. He was also elected state president of the Australian Workers' Union in 1913. Theodore became Treasurer of Queensland following Labor's victory at the 1915 state election.

In 1919, Theodore succeeded T. J. Ryan as premier. His government pursued various interventionist economic policies, establishing a number of state-run enterprises and introducing new competition and labour market regulations. A notable constitutional reform was the abolition of the Queensland Legislative Council in 1922; Queensland remains the only Australian state with no upper house in its parliament. Theodore was popular among the general public, and won two state elections (1920 and 1923) before resigning in 1925 to enter federal politics. He was defeated at his first attempt, but two years won a by-election for a seat in Sydney.

In 1929, Theodore was elected deputy leader to James Scullin. He became Treasurer after the 1929 election, but resigned after less than a year amid accusations of corruption. Theodore returned as a Treasurer in early 1931, and served until the government's landslide defeat at the 1931 election, where he lost his own seat. He had little success in combating the Great Depression, and disputes over economic policy led to a party split and several defections to Lang Labor and the United Australia Party. Theodore was only 47 when he left politics, and went on to have a successful business career as a partner of Frank Packer.

Early life

Theodore was born on 29 December 1884 in Port Adelaide, South Australia, the second of six children born to Annie (née Tanner) and Basil Stephen Theodore.^[1] His parents had met in 1882, on the passage from England to Australia. After arriving in Fremantle, Western Australia, they initially went their separate ways; they kept in touch by letter, however, and by the end of the year had married in Perth. They subsequently moved to Adelaide, where their first son Stephen was born the following year.^[2]

Theodore’s father, originally named Vasile Teodorescu, was born in Galați, Romania, into a well-to-do family connected with the Romanian nobility. He and his brother travelled to London in their youth, where they learned English. His parents had intended that he follow his father into the Romanian Orthodox priesthood, but he quit divinity school to join the British Merchant Navy.^[1] Theodore’s mother was born in Manchester, England, and descended from Irish immigrants. Her father died when she was an infant, and she was sent to work in the Lancashire cotton mills. When her mother died, she accepted an invitation to join her step-brother Tom Harrison (an ex-convict) at his farm in Greenough, Western Australia; however, she stayed there only a few months before returning to Perth to marry.^[2]

Theodore was educated at Lefevre Peninsula Catholic and Aldgate State schools in Adelaide, but left school at 12 to work on the Adelaide docks. In 1900, aged 16, he left for the goldfields of Western Australia, working as a labourer at Lennonville and Peak Hill. He then joined a guano mining crew on the Houtman Abrolhos, where he acquired his lifelong love of fishing.^[3] After a while, Theodore returned to the mainland and worked as a gold miner at Day Dawn and Kalgoorlie. He went back to Adelaide for Christmas 1902, and then joined his father on an unsuccessful prospecting expedition to Leigh Creek and Bundaleer, where they had hoped to find copper. Later in 1903, Theodore got his first experience in industrial relations, helping negotiate a wage increase for miners at Arltunga.^[4] He then decided to try his luck at Broken Hill, New South Wales. In 1906 he left for Cairns, Queensland where he prospected for tin in the Chillagoe area and worked in the Vulcan Mine in Irvinebank. It was among the unorganised workers of Stannary Hills and Irvinebank that the Amalgamated Workers' Association of North Queensland was born.

Queensland politics

Theodore as Queensland Premier in 1921.

Theodore founded the Amalgamated Workers' Association with Bill McCormack. This union used the process and principle of amalgamation to unify with other unions until it became Australia's largest union, the Australian Workers' Union (AWU). Theodore became Queensland state president of the AWU in 1913. Meanwhile, he had been elected to the Legislative Assembly of Queensland in Woothakata from 1909 to 1912 for the Australian Labor Party and subsequently from 1912 to 1925 in Chillagoe (the seat of Woothakata renamed).^[5][6] His position in the AWU made him a power in the Parliamentary Labor Party, and when Labor won a majority in the Assembly for the first time in 1915, he became Treasurer and Secretary for Public Works in the government of T. J. Ryan.

In 1919 Ryan resigned and Theodore succeeded him as premier of what was then Australia's only Labor state government, following the great split in the Labor Party over the issue of conscription in World War I. He was a popular and successful Premier, and soon began to be talked about as a possible federal Labor leader. Important educational measures were implemented, which benefited the handicapped and isolated, adult franchise in local government was introduced, and the upper house of Parliament abolished. Workers benefited from the introduction of a compulsory unemployment scheme, changes in the Safety and Accommodation Acts, and the Profiteering Prevention Act. Improvements in housing were also secured through amendments to the Savings Bank Act, the Workers' Homes Act, and the Fair Rents Act. Agriculture also received much attention through measures like the Agricultural Education Act, the Irrigation Act, the Main Roads Act, and the establishment of an Agricultural Bank, a cold store, a state cannery, a Cheese Pool, and a wheat board. Orderly marketing and controls on price fluctuations were also carried out to develop agriculture, while the Theodore Government also involved itself in the marketing of Queensland fruit produce.^[7]

In 1925, Theodore resigned as Premier and stood for the Queensland seat of Herbert in the federal election, but was unexpectedly defeated by Lewis Nott by 268 votes.^[8]

Federal politics

Theodore as a federal MP in the 1920s.

Theodore was elected to the House of Representatives for the seat of Dalley in Sydney at a 1927 by-election. His status as an outsider in Sydney Labor politics was a permanent problem for him, but he soon made his mark in federal Parliament. In 1929 he became Deputy Leader of the Labor Party under James Scullin. In October 1929 Scullin defeated the conservative government of Stanley Bruce and became Prime Minister, while Theodore became Treasurer.

Two days after the Scullin government was sworn in, the US stock market crashed. The effects of the Great Depression were soon felt in Australia, and the Scullin government, like others, was hard pressed to deal with mounting unemployment and the collapse of world trade, on which Australia's export-based economy depended. Theodore, an early advocate of Keynesian economics, favoured deficit spending to rejuvenate the economy. However, Works and Railways Minister Joseph Lyons and Trade Minister James Fenton supported a more traditional, deflationary approach.

Meanwhile, a conservative government had taken power in Queensland, and appointed a Royal Commission to investigate Theodore's financial dealings as Premier. The Commission found that Theodore and another former Queensland Premier William McCormack, had corruptly profited by authorising the purchase by the state of a copper mine at Mungana while concealing the fact that they had a financial interest in the mine, which furthermore was not economically viable. In July 1930 the "Mungana affair" forced Theodore's resignation.^[9][10]

Without Theodore's leadership and financial skills, the Scullin government drifted into deeper crisis. When it became apparent that the Queensland government did not intend charging Theodore with any offence, Scullin re-appointed him as Treasurer, in January 1931. Lyons and Fenton felt that Scullin should have waited until Theodore had been formally cleared, and resigned from cabinet in protest. Two months later, they and three of their supporters crossed the floor to the non-Labor opposition, and eventually joined forces with the Nationalists to form the United Australia Party, led by Lyons.

The Depression

Theodore with Prime Minister James Scullin in December 1929.

During 1931 Theodore faced the greatest economic crisis in Australian history. The government imported an advisor from the Bank of England, Dr Otto Niemeyer, who recommended an "orthodox" solution, including sharp reductions in government spending such as pensions and unemployment benefits. The radical Premier of New South Wales, Jack Lang, on the other hand, campaigned for the repudiation of Australia's debt to bond-holders in London.

Theodore rejected both these alternatives and proposed instead an expansion of credit to farmers and small business, through the issue of "fiduciary notes" which could be redeemed after the Depression. His Fiduciary Notes Bill was denounced as financially unsound by orthodox economists and the banks. It was eventually defeated in the Senate, which was still controlled by the conservative opposition. Theodore has been described as a visionary proto-Keynesian for this proposal, although it cannot be known what effect his measures would have had on the Depression had the bill been passed.

In March 1931, Lang's supporters in Parliament deserted the main body of Labor. Combined with the defection of Lyons and his supporters a few weeks earlier, this cost Scullin his majority. In November, the UAP and Langites rose to defeat the government on a non-confidence motion, and an election was held in December. Theodore had no base of support in Sydney and he lost his seat to Lang candidate Sol Rosevear. This ended Theodore's political career, although during the 1930s several offers were made to him to return.

Later life

Theodore (1945), by William Pidgeon

Theodore went into business, becoming a business partner of Frank Packer in gold-mining ventures in Fiji and other enterprises, making him a rich man. He was chairman of directors of Packer's press company, Australian Consolidated Press, and director of several other companies.

During World War II Theodore served the Curtin and Chifley governments as Director of the Allied Works Council, which was established to undertake works requested by Allied Forces in Australia during World War II.^[11] After the war his health declined and he died of hypertensive cardiovascular disease on 9 February 1950 at his home Princeton at 282 New South Head Road, Edgecliff, Sydney. He was buried at South Head Cemetery on 11 February 1950 after a large funeral was held at St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney.^[12]

Family

In 1909 Theodore married Esther Mahoney and they had four children. After Ted's death his son John assumed charge of the family's joint business interests with Frank Packer and he became the first managing director of Channel 9.

Assessment

The Mungana affair likely cost Theodore a chance to become prime minister, and would "irreparably taint his reputation during his lifetime and beyond". Historian Ross Fitzgerald has called him "the most talented Labor politician never to be prime minister of Australia", and noted that his admirers include Paul Keating, Bob Katter, and Jack Lang (his former opponent).^[13]

Named in his honour

The following things were named after Thedore:

• Theodore, a town in the Shire of Banana ^[14]
• Electoral district of Theodore, an electorate in the Queensland Legislative Assembly created in the 2017 Queensland state electoral redistribution ^[15]
• Theodore, suburb of Canberra ^[16]

References

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ted Theodore.

• Red Ted: The Life of E. G. Theodore, Ross Fitzgerald, University of Queensland Press, 1994
• The Mungana Affair: State Mining and Political Corruption in the 1920s, K. H. Kennedy, University of Queensland Press, 1978
• Theodore: His Life and Times, Irwin Young, Alpha Books, 1971.