Frank Forde

Francis Michael Forde (18 July 189028 January 1983) was an Australian politician who served as the 15th prime minister of Australia from 6 to 13 July 1945, in a caretaker capacity following the death of John Curtin. He was deputy leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1932 to 1946 and is the shortest-serving prime minister in Australia's history.

Forde was born in Mitchell, Queensland, to Irish immigrant parents. He eventually settled in Rockhampton, and was a schoolteacher and telegraphist before entering politics. Having joined the ALP at a young age, Forde was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly in 1917, aged 26. He transferred to the House of Representatives at the 1922 federal election, winning the Division of Capricornia. Forde was an assistant minister and minister in the Scullin government from 1929 to 1932, and was largely responsible for the government's policy of tariff increases during the Great Depression. He entered the cabinet in 1931 as Minister for Trade and Customs.

After Labor's landslide defeat at the 1931 election, Forde was elected deputy leader in place of Ted Theodore. He was expected to become party leader after Scullin's retirement in 1935 but lost to John Curtin by one vote. He returned to cabinet in 1941 as Minister for the Army in the Curtin government, and as the de facto deputy prime minister was one of the government's most prominent figures. When John Curtin died in office in 1945, Forde was appointed prime minister to serve while the Labor Party elected a new leader. He contested the leadership ballot against Ben Chifley and Norman Makin, but Chifley emerged victorious.

Forde continued on as deputy leader and army minister in the Chifley government, but lost his seat at the 1946 election. He then was High Commissioner to Canada from 1947 to 1953. Forde attempted to re-enter federal parliament in 1954, but was unsuccessful. He won a state by-election in Queensland the following year – the only former prime minister to enter state parliament – but served only a single term before again being defeated. Forde died at the age of 92, and was accorded a state funeral. At the time of his death, he was the longest-lived Australian prime minister, a record surpassed by Gough Whitlam.

Early life

thumb|left|upright|Forde as a young man

Forde was born on 18 July 1890 in Mitchell, Queensland. He was the second of six children born to Ellen (née Quirk) and John Forde. His parents were both Irish immigrants – his father was born in Ballinaglera, County Leitrim, while his mother was from County Tipperary. His father was working as a grazier at the time of his birth, and later worked as a railway supervisor.

Forde began his education at the local state school and later boarded at St Mary's College, Toowoomba. He qualified as a schoolteacher via the monitorial system, but at the age of 20 joined Queensland Railways as a clerk in the telegraphy department. He later moved to Brisbane to work as a telegraphist for the Postmaster-General's Department, at the same time studying electrical engineering. In 1914, Forde was transferred to Rockhampton. He was involved with the Australian Natives' Association (ANA), the Australian Workers' Union, and the Rockhampton Workers' Political Organisation, and helped campaign for the "No" vote in the conscription referendums of 1916 and 1917.

Early political involvement

thumb|right|upright|Forde early in his political career

State politics

Forde joined the Labor Party in 1915, at the urging of state MP James Larcombe, who became his mentor. In 1917, aged 26, he won a by-election to the seat of Rockhampton in the Queensland Legislative Assembly. It had been vacated by John Adamson, who had resigned from the Labor Party in the wake of the 1916 party split and unsuccessfully sought Nationalist Party preselection for the Senate. Forde was re-elected to Rockhampton at the 1918 and 1920 state elections. He was a supporter of the Central Queensland Separation Movement, one of the many new state movements active around that time.

Election to federal parliament

In 1921, the state Labor government of Ted Theodore passed controversial legislation that allowed state MPs to run for federal parliament and automatically return to their seat in state parliament if they lost, without having to face a by-election. It was widely reported that Forde was intended to be the primary beneficiary of the new legislation. However, the federal Nationalist government responded by amending the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 to overrule the state law. In October 1922, Forde resigned from state parliament to run in the Division of Capricornia at the 1922 federal election. He was successful, defeating Nationalist incumbent and Labor defector William Higgs. Forde's successful foray into federal politics triggered the 1923 Rockhampton by-election. The bitterly fought by-election was successfully contested by Labor's George Farrell, who had worked on Forde's federal campaign.

Forde took his seat in the House of Representatives at the age of 32, becoming one of the youngest members of the new parliament. He soon became known as a champion of the sugar and cotton industries. Despite the party's dominance in state politics, he was the only Labor MP in Queensland to be re-elected at the 1925 federal election. At the 1931 election, the ALP suffered a landslide and returned only 14 MPs, the lowest total in its history. However, in Forde's state of Queensland the party actually increased its representation, winning an additional two House seats and all three seats in the Senate. In June 1931, he was invited to officially open Efftee Studios, Thring's production studio in Melbourne. He was "shamelessly cultivated as a good friend of Efftee, with an open invitation to look in on shooting and mingle with the stars". One of Thring's investors was Tom Holt, the father of another future Australian prime minister Harold Holt. Unusually, Forde sought advice on the matter not only from his departmental head Ernest Hall, but also from solicitor-general Robert Garran and private barrister J. V. Gould. As a "pious Catholic", he was persuaded by Garran and Gould's advice that Redheap was "indecent and obscene [and] blasphemous as well". His decision to ban Redheap was controversial and came under attack from libertarian and anti-censorship elements within his party, particularly from Lindsay's home state of Victoria. However, at the 1930 ALP Federal Conference, attempts to censure Forde failed, and a watered down resolution was passed supporting freedom of expression but allowing for censorship of "licentious and pornographic literature". Forde later authorised the banning of Frederic Manning's The Middle Parts of Fortune, overriding departmental advice, and refused an appeal from Jean Devanny to unban her novel The Butcher Shop.

Opposition (1932–1941)

thumb|left|upright|Forde and John Curtin at a meeting of the Advisory War Council in 1940

One of the MPs defeated at the 1931 election was Treasurer Ted Theodore, the ALP's deputy leader. A ballot for the party's leadership positions was held on 16 February 1932, at which Scullin was re-elected unopposed as leader and Forde was elected as his deputy. He thus became Deputy Leader of the Opposition. With Scullin suffering frequent bouts of ill health, Forde was Acting Leader of the Opposition on a number occasions. Notably, after the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935 he announced that the ALP would pursue a policy of non-participation, as "the control of Abyssinia is not worth the loss of a single Australian life". In the same month Forde delegated authority to the army's Northern Command to detain all enemy aliens suspected of "anti-British sentiment". His use of "master warrants" to detain enemy aliens brought him into conflict with attorney-general H. V. Evatt, a civil libertarian, who concluded some internments were "unjustified or frivolous". Forde did begin to release enemy alien internees in 1944 on the grounds they were needed for food production, although many remained in detention until the end of the war. He supported the principle that detainees could become naturalised citizens after the war's end, and also opposed suggestions that Japanese prisoners-of-war who died in Australia should not be buried in the same cemeteries as Australians.

In March 1942, Forde authorised the internment of twenty people connected with the Australia First Movement, including writer Percy Stephensen and suffragette Adela Pankhurst, announcing in parliament that the detainees intended to collaborate with the Japanese and had plans to carry out industrial sabotage and political assassinations. Only four of the Australia First detainees were charged with offences, with the others remaining detained without trial until the end of the war in spite of legal advice received by Evatt that they had not committed crimes or breached any regulations. A committee of inquiry appointed by the government concluded in 1945 that the detention of eight of the Australia First detainees was unjustified and recommended compensation payments be made.

Caretaker prime minister, 1945

thumb|right|Forde in April 1945, a few months before he became prime minister, conversing with [[H. V. Evatt (left) and Stanley Bruce]]

In April 1945, Forde left Australia to attend the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco. Late that month, Curtin was admitted to hospital; in the absence of Forde and H. V. Evatt (the Minister for External Affairs), he designated Ben Chifley as acting prime minister. Forde did not return to Australia until 2 July, but then immediately took over from Chifley. The prime minister's health had severely declined in the meantime, although he had been able to go home to The Lodge. Curtin died in his sleep in the early hours of 5 July, at the age of 60.

On the day that Curtin died, Forde issued a brief statement announcing the death, and then in the afternoon moved a condolence motion at a brief sitting of parliament. On the morning of the following day, 6 July, he led a procession of MPs past Curtin's coffin at Parliament House, where his body was lying in state. In the afternoon, Forde attended a memorial service, and then went to Government House, where he was formally sworn in as prime minister by Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, the Governor-General. He was appointed as prime minister with the understanding that he would resign if the Labor Party elected someone other than him as leader at its next caucus meeting. Forde was the Labor Party's sixth prime minister. He is the only Australian prime minister to have never led a political party. There was little precedent for his appointment, as only one previous prime minister (Joseph Lyons) had died in office, and Lyons had been succeeded by the leader of the smaller party in his governing coalition (Earle Page). Forde and his family left Australia on 7 December, and arrived in Ottawa on 18 January 1947. In October 1951, the Menzies Government announced a nine-month extension to his initial five-year term. From May 1952, he was the doyen (longest-serving head of mission) of the diplomatic corps in Canada. He returned to Australia in July 1953.

Return to Queensland politics (1955–1957)

After returning to Australia from Canada, Forde was given a civic reception at Brisbane City Hall by Lord Mayor Frank Roberts. He was soon invited to re-enter federal politics by Arthur Calwell, on behalf of the party's federal leader H. V. Evatt. In August 1953 he accepted an appointment as a paid organiser for the ALP in Queensland.

In February 1954, Forde nominated for ALP preselection for the Division of Wide Bay, following the withdrawal of the previous endorsed candidate. He was defeated at the 1954 federal election, in a seat which the Country Party had held since 1928.

In 1955, Forde returned to the Queensland Legislative Assembly as the MP for Flinders after winning the 1955 Flinders state by-election. He is the only Australian prime minister to have later served in a state parliament.

Forde held the seat at the 1956 state election, but was narrowly defeated at the 1957 Queensland state election by the Country Party’s Bill Longeran by a single vote. The 1957 state election resulted in Labor losing power in Queensland after 25 years in government. Forde disputed the result and the election was declared void on 4 March 1958. However, at the by-election held on 17 May 1958, Longeran defeated Forde by over 400 votes. Had Forde been elected, 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 during the 1957 Labor split.

Later Life

In 1962, Forde was nominated for Labor preselection for the Senate vacancy caused by the death of Max Poulter. He received three out of 66 votes in the ballot, with his age probably a factor in his low tally.thumb|left|Frank Forde's headstone at Brisbane's [[Toowong Cemetery]]

Forde retired to Brisbane where he devoted himself to Catholic charity work. In his living room hung a large portrait of wartime US General Douglas MacArthur. On 11 April 1964, at the request of Prime Minister Robert Menzies, Forde represented Australia at MacArthur's funeral in Norfolk, Virginia.

right|thumb|upright|Bust of fifteenth Prime Minister of Australia Frank Forde located in the [[Prime Minister's Avenue in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens]]

Forde died in 1983. He was accorded a state funeral which, on 3 February, proceeded from St Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in St Lucia to the Toowong Cemetery, 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 favor of Hawke, which he did. Forde was the last surviving member of the Scullin, Curtin and his own Cabinet. Furthermore, he was the last surviving MP from when Stanley Bruce was prime minister.

Forde was the only deputy Labor leader who served under three leaders (Scullin, Curtin and Chifley) until Jenny Macklin (Crean, Latham and Beazley, 2001–2006). The electoral Division of Forde and the Canberra suburb of Forde are named after him.

Personal life

Forde married Veronica (Vera) Catherine O'Reilly in 1925 and they had four children:

Mary Therese (1927–2016)
Mercia (b. 1930)
Clare (1932–2010)
Francis Gerard Forde (1935–1966); his widow, Leneen Forde, became Governor of Queensland.

Forde was widowed in November 1967. During the years that he spent in Ottawa as High Commissioner to Canada two of his daughters (Mary and Mercia) became married to Canadians. Mary (m. William Robert Thompson) eventually settled with her husband in Kingston, Ontario, Canada while Mercia (m. Ian Ferrier) returned to Australia and settled with her husband in St. Lucia, Brisbane. Francis Gerald Forde (m. Leneen Forde) also settled in St. Lucia, while Clare (m. John Attridge) settled in Canberra. Between their four children, Frank and Vera Forde had 15 grandchildren.

References

Forde, Francis Michael – Brisbane City Council Grave Location Search