The 1929 election, 1917-1929

Component identifier:

Series 33

Content Summary:

The Bruce-Page Government had been troubled throughout 1926-1929 by industrial disputes, particularly in the transport and coal industries, and, frustrated by the failure of conferences, arbitration, prosecutions and de-registrations to settle them, in August 1929, Bruce introduced a Maritime Industries Bill abandoning federal arbitration powers to the States. The Bill was defeated in committee by the Labor Party, the committee chairman's abstaining from voting, and a small band of Nationalist backbenchers led by Hughes. He naturally lost party preselection at the subsequent House of Representative election, but enough North Sydney branches worked to ensure his re-election as an Independent Nationalist.

The papers in this series document the part Hughes played in the events that forced the election, and the campaign both in North Sydney and generally. It is arranged into two subseries.

Immediate source of acquisition:

The W. M. Hughes Papers were presented to the National Library of Australia by Dame Mary Hughes in 1953. The collection was received in two consignments. One consisted of papers taken from the Perpetual Trustee Company comprising material from Hughes' Lindfield home and from his office rooms at the Commonwealth Offices, Sydney; the other came directly from Lindfield. Lists of the contents of both consignments are held in the Library's Manuscript Branch. With the agreement of the executors and the Library, much of the collection, was for a time, held at the Australian National University by Fitzhardinge. He was permitted sole access to the collection while writing the biography Hughes commissioned in 1951. Fitzhardinge's own papers documenting the writing of the biography are also held by the Library (MS 5400). The papers transferred to the Library in 1953 are by no means the total collection of Hughes' personal papers, although it is impossible to say what proportion has survived. (see Fitzhardinge, p.936).

Names:

Hughes, W. M. (1862-1952)

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