Frank Forde
Encyclopedia
Francis Michael Forde PC (18 July 189028 January 1983) was an Australia
n politician and the 15th Prime Minister of Australia
. He was the shortest serving Prime Minister in Australia's history, being in office for only eight days.
, and was the second of six children of Irish immigrant parents. His father was working as a grazier at the time of his birth, and Forde was educated at St. Mary's College, Toowoomba
, a Catholic
school, and became a teacher. Settling in Rockhampton
, he became active in the Labor Party
and in workers' education groups.
In 1917 he was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly
as Labor MP for Rockhampton
. In 1922 he resigned and was elected to the Australian House of Representatives
for Capricornia
.
Forde soon advanced in the Labor ranks. When Labor won the 1929 election
, he became Assistant Minister for Trade and Customs in the Scullin
government. In the last days of the government he became Minister for Trade and Customs
. As one of the few senior Labor MPs to survive defeat at the 1931 election
, Forde became Deputy Opposition Leader in 1932. When Scullin retired in 1935, Forde contested the leadership ballot but was defeated by one vote by John Curtin
, mainly because he had supported Scullin's economic policies.
Forde was a loyal deputy, and in 1941 when Labor returned to power he became Minister for the Army, a vital role in wartime. On 5 July 1945 Curtin died; as Deputy Leader, Forde was sworn in as Prime Minister on 6 July by the Governor-General
, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester
. At the leadership ballot on 13 July, he contested the leadership with Ben Chifley
and Norman Makin
. Chifley won, but Forde was elected Deputy Leader once more. As Minister for Defence he was much criticised for the slowness with which Army personnel were being demobilised. As a result, he lost his seat at the 1946 election
, though the Labor Party itself comfortably retained office.
, in the seat of Wide Bay
, but without success. In 1955, at a by-election, he returned to the Queensland Parliament as MP for Flinders. He is the only Prime Minister who later served in a State Parliament.
However, in 1957 the Labor Party split
resulted not only in Labor falling from power, but also in Forde being defeated in his own seat after a disputed and re-run election; he lost by only one vote. Save for this blow, he would probably have become Labor leader in Queensland, given that Premier Vince Gair
and most of Gair's followers had been expelled from the party.
where he devoted himself to Catholic charity work. In his living room hung a large portrait of wartime U.S. General Douglas MacArthur
. On 11 April 1964, at the request of the Prime Minister Robert Menzies
, Forde represented Australia at Macarthur’s funeral in Arlington, Virginia.
He died in 1983. His funeral was held on 3 February, the same day that Bob Hawke
was elected ALP leader. Indeed, it was at Forde's funeral that Senator John Button
told then Labor leader Bill Hayden
that he must step aside in favour of Hawke, which he did.
The shortest-serving prime minister in Australian history – his term of office lasted only eight days – Forde was previously the longest-lived Australian prime minister (living ), until he was surpassed by Gough Whitlam
on 21 January 2009. Forde however is still the longest living former Prime Minister after the end of his tenure. Having died on January 28 1983, Forde had lived for 37 years 6 months 15 days after he had left office on July 13 1945. He was the only deputy Labor leader who served under three leaders (Scullin, Curtin and Chifley) until Jenny Macklin
(Crean
, Latham
and Beazley
, 2001-06). The electoral Division of Forde
and the Canberra
suburb of Forde
are named after him.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n politician and the 15th Prime Minister of Australia
Prime Minister of Australia
The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
. He was the shortest serving Prime Minister in Australia's history, being in office for only eight days.
Early life
Forde was born at Mitchell, QueenslandMitchell, Queensland
Mitchell is a town in the Western Downs region of Queensland, Australia. It is on the Warrego Highway, 587 kilometres west of Brisbane and 176 kilometres east of Charleville. At the 2006 census, Mitchell had a population of 944....
, and was the second of six children of Irish immigrant parents. His father was working as a grazier at the time of his birth, and Forde was educated at St. Mary's College, Toowoomba
St. Mary's College, Toowoomba
St. Mary's College, Toowoomba is an all-boys Roman Catholic college in Queensland, Australia. The College was established by the Congregation of Christian Brothers in 1898, and currently has an enrolment of approximately 640 students from years 5 to 12....
, a Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
school, and became a teacher. Settling in Rockhampton
Rockhampton
Rockhampton can refer to:* Rockhampton, Queensland is a city in Queensland, Australia* Rockhampton City, Queensland, a suburb of Rockhampton, Queensland* Electoral district of Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia...
, he became active in the 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...
and in workers' education groups.
Political career
Queensland Legislative Assembly
The Queensland Legislative Assembly is the unicameral chamber of the Parliament of Queensland. Elections are held approximately once every three years. Voting is by the Optional Preferential Voting form of the Alternative Vote system...
as Labor MP for Rockhampton
Electoral district of Rockhampton
The district of Rockhampton is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Queensland.Wedged between the electoral districts of Keppel to the east and Mirani to the west, Rockhampton encompasses the bulk of the regional city of Rockhampton and many of its outlying...
. In 1922 he resigned and was elected to 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....
for Capricornia
Division of Capricornia
The Division of Capricornia is an Australian Electoral Division in Queensland. The division was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election. It is named for the Tropic of Capricorn, which runs through the Division. It is located on the central Queensland coast and its...
.
Forde soon advanced in the Labor ranks. When Labor won the 1929 election
Australian federal election, 1929
Federal elections were held in Australia on 12 October 1929. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives were up for election, with no Senate seats up for election, as a result of Billy Hughes and other rebel backbenchers crossing the floor over industrial relations legislation, depriving the...
, he became Assistant Minister for Trade and Customs in the Scullin
James Scullin
James Henry Scullin , Australian Labor politician and the ninth Prime Minister of Australia. Two days after he was sworn in as Prime Minister, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 occurred, marking the beginning of the Great Depression and subsequent Great Depression in Australia.-Early life:Scullin was...
government. In the last days of the government he became Minister for Trade and Customs
Minister for Trade (Australia)
The Australian Minister for Trade has been Dr. Craig Emerson since 14 September 2010.-Portfolio:Currently the Minister for Trade administers the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade jointly with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, although prior to 1987 there was a separate Department of Trade...
. As one of the few senior Labor MPs to survive 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...
, Forde became Deputy Opposition Leader in 1932. When Scullin retired in 1935, Forde contested the leadership ballot but was defeated by one vote by John Curtin
John Curtin
John Joseph Curtin , Australian politician, served as the 14th Prime Minister of Australia. Labor under Curtin formed a minority government in 1941 after the crossbench consisting of two independent MPs crossed the floor in the House of Representatives, bringing down the Coalition minority...
, mainly because he had supported Scullin's economic policies.
Forde was a loyal deputy, and in 1941 when Labor returned to power he became Minister for the Army, a vital role in wartime. On 5 July 1945 Curtin died; as Deputy Leader, Forde was sworn in as Prime Minister on 6 July by the Governor-General
Governor-General of Australia
The Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia is the representative in Australia at federal/national level of the Australian monarch . He or she exercises the supreme executive power of the Commonwealth...
, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester
Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester
The Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester was a soldier and member of the British Royal Family, the third son of George V of the United Kingdom and Queen Mary....
. At the leadership ballot on 13 July, he contested the leadership with Ben Chifley
Ben Chifley
Joseph Benedict Chifley , Australian politician, was the 16th Prime Minister of Australia. He took over the Australian Labor Party leadership and Prime Ministership after the death of John Curtin in 1945, and went on to retain government at the 1946 election, before being defeated at the 1949...
and Norman Makin
Norman Makin
Norman John Oswald Makin AO , Australian politician, was a Cabinet minister, Speaker of the House of Representatives and diplomat.-Early life:...
. Chifley won, but Forde was elected Deputy Leader once more. As Minister for Defence he was much criticised for the slowness with which Army personnel were being demobilised. As a result, he lost his seat at the 1946 election
Australian federal election, 1946
Federal elections were held in Australia on 28 September 1946. All 74 seats in the House of Representatives, and 19 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election...
, though the Labor Party itself comfortably retained office.
High Commissioner and return to state politics
Chifley appointed Forde High Commissioner to Canada, and he held this position until 1953. He returned to Australia and tried to re-enter Parliament at the 1954 electionAustralian federal election, 1954
Federal elections were held in Australia on 29 May 1954. All 121 seats in the House of Representatives were up for election, no Senate election took place...
, in the seat of Wide Bay
Division of Wide Bay
The Division of Wide Bay is an Australian Electoral Division in Queensland. The division was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election...
, but without success. In 1955, at a by-election, he returned to the Queensland Parliament as MP for Flinders. He is the only Prime Minister who later served in a State Parliament.
However, in 1957 the Labor Party split
Australian Labor Party split of 1955
The Australian Labor Party split of 1955 was a splintering of the Australian Labor Party along sectarian and ideological lines in the mid 1950s...
resulted not only in Labor falling from power, but also in Forde being defeated in his own seat after a disputed and re-run election; he lost by only one vote. Save for this blow, he would probably have become Labor leader in Queensland, given that Premier Vince Gair
Vince Gair
Vincent Clare "Vince" Gair was an Australian politician. He served as Premier of Queensland from 1952 until 1957, when his stormy relations with the trade union movement saw him expelled from the Australian Labor Party. He was elected to the Australian Senate and led the Democratic Labor Party...
and most of Gair's followers had been expelled from the party.
After politics
Forde retired to BrisbaneBrisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
where he devoted himself to Catholic charity work. In his living room hung a large portrait of wartime U.S. General Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the...
. On 11 April 1964, at the request of the Prime Minister Robert Menzies
Robert Menzies
Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, , Australian politician, was the 12th and longest-serving Prime Minister of Australia....
, Forde represented Australia at Macarthur’s funeral in Arlington, Virginia.
He died in 1983. His funeral was held on 3 February, the same day that Bob Hawke
Bob Hawke
Robert James Lee "Bob" Hawke AC GCL was the 23rd Prime Minister of Australia from March 1983 to December 1991 and therefore longest serving Australian Labor Party Prime Minister....
was elected ALP leader. Indeed, it was at Forde's funeral that Senator John Button
John Button
John Norman Button was an Australian politician, who served as a senior minister in the Hawke and Keating Labor governments...
told then Labor leader Bill Hayden
Bill Hayden
William George "Bill" Hayden AC was the 21st Governor-General of Australia. Prior to this, he represented the Australian Labor Party in parliament; he was a minister in the government of Gough Whitlam, and later became Leader of the Opposition, narrowly losing the 1980 federal election to the...
that he must step aside in favour of Hawke, which he did.
The shortest-serving prime minister in Australian history – his term of office lasted only eight days – Forde was previously the longest-lived Australian prime minister (living ), until he was surpassed by Gough Whitlam
Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...
on 21 January 2009. Forde however is still the longest living former Prime Minister after the end of his tenure. Having died on January 28 1983, Forde had lived for 37 years 6 months 15 days after he had left office on July 13 1945. He was the only deputy Labor leader who served under three leaders (Scullin, Curtin and Chifley) until Jenny Macklin
Jenny Macklin
Jennifer Louise Macklin , is an Australian politician. She is Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs in the Gillard Ministry...
(Crean
Simon Crean
Simon Findlay Crean is an Australian politician, and the current Minister for the Arts and Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government in the Australian Federal Government. He was leader of the Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition at the Federal level,...
, Latham
Mark Latham
Mark William Latham , an author and former Australian politician, was leader of the Federal Parliamentary Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from December 2003 to January 2005....
and Beazley
Kim Beazley
In the October 1998 election, Labor polled a majority of the two-party vote and received the largest swing to a first-term opposition since 1934. However, due to the uneven nature of the swing, Labor came up eight seats short of making Beazley Prime Minister....
, 2001-06). The electoral Division of Forde
Division of Forde
The Division of Forde is anAustralian Electoral Division in Queensland.The division was created in 1984 and is named for Frank Forde, who was briefly Prime Minister of Australia in 1945...
and the 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...
suburb of Forde
Forde, Australian Capital Territory
Forde is a northern suburb of the Canberra, Australia district of Gungahlin. It is named in honour of Frank Forde, a politician who was Prime Minister of Australia for a week in 1945 following the death of John Curtin. Forde is adjacent to the suburbs of Amaroo, Throsby and Bonner. It is bounded...
are named after him.
Family
Forde married Veronica (Vera) Catherine O’Reilly in 1925 and they had four children:- Mary (b. 1928)
- Mercia (b. 1930)
- Clare (b. 1932)
- Francis Gerard Forde (1935-1966); his widow, Leneen Forde, became Governor of Queensland.