Ben Chifley A Local Man

Many countries have had leaders who have come from humble beginnings, and for Australia, this leader was Ben Chifley.

Joseph Benedict Chifley was born in Bathurst, NSW, Australia in 1885, the son of an Irish – Australian blacksmith.

He left school at the age of 15, and began work for the New South Wales railway, where he became an engine driver.

An active union member, Chifley joined the Australian Labor party, and in 1928, he won the Federal seat of Macquarie in the House of Representatives.

He lost the 1931 election, and reentered parliament in 1940, becoming prime Minister in 1945.

Losing the 1949 election, Chifley became the leader of the opposition and retained that position until his death in 1951.

More from Wikipedia…

Apart from a number of reforms, many of which are still current today, Ben Chifley is remembered for his battles with right wing opponents, with his efforts to nationalize the banks, as well as sending troops into the coal mines in 1949 to counter a bitter, communist inspired strike.

Being in power at the dawn of the Cold War, leading a democratically elected socialist government while battling elements of the union movement appears to be a perfect paradox.

Ben Chifley: A Local Man

Rather than move to Canberra, Chifley maintained his home in Bathurst, and stayed at Canberra’s Kurrajong hotel when parliament was sitting.

Today, his home at number 10 Busby street in Bathurst is maintained as a memorial to the man that many consider one of Australia’s greatest Prime Ministers.

The modest cottage, built during the 1880s, is furnished and fitted just as it was during the time that Chifley and his wife Elizabeth lived there.

Reading about Chifley’s life shows that he was a simple man, who grew up knowing hardship, and deprivation.

Being a unionist, and a member of the Australian Labor Party, Chifley was a democratic socialist.

Today’s Labor party is described as being a Social Democratic party, and follows the so called ‘third way’.

Ben Chifley’s influence on Bathurst is still strong, and many members of the family are still in the area.

In fact one of my first memories as a child is of playing around the statue of the man near my home.

One of my high school teachers was a nephew of Ben’s, and I worked with another of his relatives at the local hospital for a time.

This post has been wasting away on my computer for some time, until I had the opportunity to see the production of ‘A Local Man’,a play written by Bob Ellis and Robin McLachlan.

The play is set in the living room of Chifley’s house in Busby St., Bathurst, shortly before his death.

Ben Chifley was a man of his time, shaped by the times in which he lived, and who went on to be one of the most successful, and well loved Prime Ministers that Australia has known.

Many have that Ben Chifley was Australia’s Abraham Lincoln, rising from poverty, and a working class background, educating himself as he worked on the railway.

For Bathurst though, he is a Local Man, our Ben Chifley!

Bibliography:

A Local Man by Bob Ellis and Robin McLachlan
Currency Press 2005, 2007

Chifley by David Day
Harper Collins 2001