Arthur Blakeley was an Australian politician.

Blakeley was born in Gilberton

Gilberton, South Australia

Gilberton is a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia on the northern bank of the River Torrens a short distance from Adelaide’s city centre. It is bounded by the river, Park terrace, Stephen Terrace and Northcote Terrace. The suburb is largely residential with some large and ornate Victorian homes...

, South Australia, and was educated at North Broken Hill

Broken Hill, New South Wales

-Geology:Broken Hill's massive orebody, which formed about 1,800 million years ago, has proved to be among the world's largest silver-lead-zinc mineral deposits. The orebody is shaped like a boomerang plunging into the earth at its ends and outcropping in the centre. The protruding tip of the...

 Convent School. He left school at 13 to work in the local mining camps. He then mainly worked in pastoral occupations and became secretary of the western branch the Australian Workers' Union

Australian Workers' Union

The Australian Workers' Union is one of Australia's largest and oldest trade unions. It traces its origins to unions founded in the pastoral and mining industries in the 1880s, and currently has approximately 135,000 members...

 and a member of the state executive of the Australian Labor Party

Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

 from 1915 to 1917. He married Ruby Pauline McCarroll in 1914.

Political career

In the 1917 election

Australian federal election, 1917

Federal elections were held in Australia on 5 May 1917. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives, and 18 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election...

, Blakeley was elected as the member for Darling

Division of Darling

The Division of Darling was an Australian Electoral Division in New South Wales. The division was created in 1900 and was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election. From 1901 until 1922 it was based on Bourke, Cobar, Nyngan, Coonamble and Gilgandra. From 1906 it also...

 in the Australian House of Representatives

Australian House of Representatives

The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....

 after a sustained campaign against conscription

Conscription

Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...

. He was president of the Australian Workers' Union from 1919 to 1923. In April 1928, he was elected deputy leader of the parliamentary party, but lost it in 1929 to Ted Theodore

Ted Theodore

Edward Granville Theodore was an Australian politician. He was Premier of Queensland 1919–25, a federal politician representing a New South Wales seat 1927–31, and Federal Treasurer 1929–30.-Early life:...

. On the election of the Scullin government

Scullin Ministry

The Scullin Ministry was the twentieth Australian Commonwealth ministry, and ran from 22 October 1929 to 6 January 1932.Australian Labor Party*Rt Hon James Scullin, MP: Prime Minister, Minister for External Affairs, Minister for Industry...

, Blakeley became Minister for Home and Territories

Minister for Home Affairs (Australia)

The Australian Minister for Home Affairs has been Brendan O'Connor since 6 June 2009. The Home Affairs portfolio brings together agencies such as the Australian Customs Service , the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, which were previously the...

 until Labor's defeat at the 1931 election

Australian federal election, 1931

Federal elections were held in Australia on 19 December 1931. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives, and 18 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election...

. This position was responsible for the development of Canberra

Canberra

Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...

 and in 1930 he announced the establishment of a university college

Australian National University

The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...

 and in 1931, he abolished the Federal Capital Commission

Federal Capital Commission

The Federal Capital Commission was an agency of the Australian government formed to construct and administer Canberra from 1 January 1925. The Chief Commissioner of the body was Sir John Butters....

. His main interest in parliament were industrial affairs and public health. At the 1934 election

Australian federal election, 1934

Federal elections were held in Australia on 15 September 1934. All 74 seats in the House of Representatives, and 18 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election. The incumbent United Australia Party led by Prime Minister of Australia Joseph Lyons with coalition partner the Country Party led...

, he was defeated by the Lang Labor

Lang Labor

Lang Labor was the name commonly used to describe three successive break-away sections of the Australian Labor Party, all led by the New South Wales Labor leader Jack Lang premier of NSW .-Initial opposition to Lang's leadership:...

 candidate, Joe Clark

Joe Clark (Australian politician)

Joseph "Joe" James Clark, CBE was an Australian politician, serving in the Australian House of Representatives as the Member for Darling from 15 September 1934 to 29 September 1969, a term of making him one of the longest-serving members of the House of Representatives.Clark's father was Joseph...

.

Blakeley moved to Melbourne and in 1935 he was appointed an inspector of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration

Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration

The Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration is a defunct Australian court, which had jurisdiction to arbitrate interstate industrial disputes....

, which he worked for almost continuously until his retirement in 1952. His wife died in 1962, and he died in 1972 in the Melbourne suburb of Glen Iris

Glen Iris, Victoria

Glen Iris is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 10 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area are the Cities of Boroondara and Stonnington...

, after a state funeral he was cremated. He was survived by two sons and two daughters.