Sir George Foster Pearce KCVO (14 January 1870 – 24 June 1952) was an Australian politician who served as a Senator for Western Australia from 1901 to 1938. He began his career in the Labor Party but later joined the National Labor Party, the Nationalist Party, and the United Australia Party; he served as a cabinet minister under prime ministers from all four parties.
Pearce was born in Mount Barker, South Australia. He left school at the age of 11 and trained as a carpenter, later moving to Western Australia and becoming involved in the union movement. He helped establish the Labor Party there, and in 1901 – aged 31 – was elected to the new federal parliament. Pearce was elevated to cabinet in 1908, under Andrew Fisher, and served in each of Fisher's three governments. He continued on in cabinet when Billy Hughes became prime minister in 1915, and after the Labor Party split of 1916 followed Hughes to the National Labor Party and then to the Nationalists. Pearce also served in cabinet under Stanley Bruce and, after joining the UAP in 1931, Joseph Lyons. He was Minister for Defence from 1908 to 1909, 1910 to 1913, 1914 to 1921, and 1932 to 1934. His 24 years in cabinet and 37 years as a senator are both records.
Early life
Pearce was born on 14 January 1870 in Mount Barker, South Australia. He was the fifth of eleven children born to Jane (née Foster) and James Pearce. His father was a blacksmith of Cornish descent, born in the village of Altarnun, while his mother was born in London. An uncle, George Pearce, briefly served in the South Australian House of Assembly.
During Pearce's childhood his family lived in various locations in rural South Australia. His mother died when he was ten years old, and he left school the following year by which time the family was living in Redhill. His father briefly tried wheat farming on the Eyre Peninsula, then moved the family to Kilkerran on the Yorke Peninsula where he returned to blacksmithing. Pearce began working as a farm labourer at the age of twelve in nearby Maitland. He took up a carpentry apprenticeship in Maitland in 1885, where he also received free evening lessons from the local school headmaster. He moved to Adelaide after completing his apprenticeship, but lost his job in the early 1890s depression.
In 1892, Pearce moved to Western Australia where he found work as a carpenter in Perth. Following the discovery of gold at Coolgardie, he left Perth in March 1894 and went to the Eastern Goldfields where he joined thousands of others in prospecting for alluvial gold. While camped at Kurnalpi, Pearce and two others were attacked by Wangkatha men armed with spears, to which he responded by firing his revolver three times. He had little success in prospecting and returned to Perth in 1895.
After returning to Perth, Pearce resumed his work as a carpenter and his involvement in the labour movement, where he was a member of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners. In the late 1890s he "became one of Perth's most prominent trade unionists". In the same year he purchased a home in the working-class suburb of Subiaco, working at the local Whittaker Bros. timber mill.
Early political career
thumb|left|upright|Pearce in 1901
In 1893, Pearce helped found the Progressive Political League, a precursor to the Western Australian branch of the ALP.
Fisher governments
In 1908, Pearce was elected to cabinet by the ALP caucus as a member of the first Fisher Ministry. He had long shown an interest in defence matters in the Senate and was chosen by Prime Minister Andrew Fisher to become Minister for Defence. He believed it was his duty as minister to accept "any reasonable expenditure on armament, ammunition, and accoutrements" recommended by his advisers and to resolve disagreements between sections of the military. During his first term as minister, Pearce ordered three River-class torpedo-boat destroyers for the what would become the Royal Australian Navy. Pearce attended the 1911 Imperial Conference in London where the relationship between the Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy was determined. He oversaw the implementation of the Universal Service Scheme of compulsory military training scheme, and in 1912 approved the creation of the Central Flying School at Point Cook, Victoria, which became the "birthplace of Australian military aviation". Outside of the defence portfolio, Pearce oversaw the creation of Advisory Council of Science and Industry, the predecessor of the CSIRO, which Hughes had approved before his departure. In March 1916, he used the War Precautions Act 1914 to set price controls on bread and flour in metropolitan areas. On 6 July he extended this to all other foods, and on 20 July he created the Necessary Commodities Commission with the power to set prices on any item.
By the time of Hughes' return, Australia's prosecution of the war made the introduction of conscription an intensely divisive issue for the ALP. Pearce was convinced of the necessity of introducing conscription, but the majority of his party did not agree. Pearce, along with many other of the party's founding members, subsequently followed Hughes out of the party and into the new "National Labor Party". A few months later, the National Labor Party merged with the Commonwealth Liberal Party to form the Nationalist Party, with Hughes as its leader.
Lyons government
thumb|upright|Pearce in 1927
In January 1932, following the UAP's victory at the 1931 election, Pearce was appointed defence minister for a fourth time. He articulated the defence policies that he had supported throughout his career in a September 1933 speech to the Millions Club in Sydney: "an efficient Australian navy capable of operating with the Royal Navy; a well-equipped army based on a militia; a modern air force; armaments and munitions factories; and a closer defence relationship with New Zealand". Pearce's speech attracted international attraction for its commitment to rearmament, a policy subsequently adopted by the United Kingdom and other dominions later in the 1930s. He announced that the Lyons government would allocate an additional £1.5 million in defence expenditure, effectively doubling the previous year's defence budget and reversing cuts made during the Great Depression.
Following the 1934 federal election, Pearce requested to be removed from the defence portfolio, which had begun to exhaust him. He was instead appointed Minister for External Affairs in October 1934, although he continued to maintain an interest in defence policy. He played no significant role in formulating policy, but helped establish his department as an institution in its own right, expanding the diplomatic corps and supporting the establishment of one of Australia's first foreign affairs journals, Current Notes on International Affairs. The external affairs department had previously been run as a branch of the Prime Minister's Department and did not receive its own separate head until 1935.
As external affairs minister, Pearce supported the Lyons government's diplomatic policy of appeasement of Imperial Japan while Australia continued to rearm. In October 1935, he told U.S. consul-general Jay Pierrepont Moffat that "the government remained suspicious of [Japan]'s ultimate intentions, but with British naval strength reduced below the safety point, and with American aid discounted, there was no policy open to her other than trying to be friendly with Japan and to give her no excuse to adopt an aggressive policy vis-à-vis the Commonwealth". He later echoed Lyons' calls for a Pacific non-aggression treaty between the United States and Japan.
Pearce campaigned for the "No" vote in the 1933 Western Australian secession referendum, touring the state with Lyons and Tom Brennan for two weeks. The "Yes" vote won almost a two-thirds majority, but ultimately secession did not occur. Pearce's opposition to secession played a key role in his defeat at the 1937 federal election, along with claims he had failed to defend Western Australia's interests and had not visited the state often enough. The pro-secession Sunday Times ran an anti-Pearce editorial line, while the Dominion League of Western Australia and the Wheatgrowers' Union ran a "Put Pearce Last" campaign. He resigned as a minister after the election and spent the remainder of his term as a backbencher, concluding his service on 30 June 1938. He was a senator for 37 years and three months, a record term. His total service as a minister was 24 years and seven months, also a record in the Australian Parliament.
Legacy
Places named in Pearce's honour include RAAF Base Pearce and the electoral Division of Pearce in Western Australia, Pearce Peak in Antarctica, and the Canberra suburb of Pearce.
Australia's longest-serving prime minister Robert Menzies wrote the introduction to Peter Heydon's 1965 biography of Pearce, Quiet Decision, and recalled that he had "never sat with an abler man than George Pearce" in cabinet. Menzies praised Pearce's "profound and reflective mind", analytical way of thinking, and ability to express ideas and policy recommendations.