Anderson Dawson (born Andrew Dawson; 16 July 1863 – 20 July 1910) was an Australian politician. He was an influential figure in the early years of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), briefly serving as premier of Queensland in 1899 and forming one of the world's first socialist governments. He later served as federal minister for defence in 1904.
Dawson was born in Rockhampton, Queensland. His mother died when he was young and he spent three years in an orphanage after his father abandoned him. Fostered by relatives in Gympie, he left school at the age of twelve and began working on the Charters Towers goldfields. He also spent time in the Kimberley during the Western Australian gold rushes. After returning to Charters Towers, Dawson became president of the local miners' union and active in local labour politics. He also co-founded a local newspaper.
Dawson was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly at the 1893 general election, winning the seat of Charters Towers for the Labor Party. He was elected party leader and leader of the opposition in May 1899 and succeeded in passing a no confidence motion in James Dickson's government in December 1899. Dawson succeeded Dickson as premier, but his ministry was quickly defeated on the floor of parliament; he relinquished office after a week. While his government did not pass any legislation it is seen as historically significant in demonstrating that the Labor Party's ability to form government in its own right.
Dawson resigned as leader of the Labor Party in Queensland in August 1900. Following the federation of the Australian colonies, he was elected to the Senate at the inaugural 1901 federal election. He served as defence minister in the Watson government for four months in 1904, the first member of the Labor Party to hold the position. Dawson was defeated for re-election at the 1906 Australian federal election, standing as an independent after factional conflict. He fell into poverty and died of alcoholism in 1910, aged 47.
Dawson was born on 16 July 1863 in Rockhampton, Queensland. He was the first of two children born to Jane (née Smith) and Anderson Dawson. His parents were both immigrants from Scotland, his mother born in Ayrshire and his father in Lanarkshire.
Dawson's family relocated to Brisbane shortly after he was born, settling in a one-room cottage in Paddington. In 1866 his mother was burned to death when her dress accidentally caught fire at their home. His infant sister died early the following year. Dawson was placed into the Diamantina Orphanage in 1869, aged six, as a result of his father abandoning him. He spent nearly three years in the institution, which housed around 100 boys. Dawson was apparently unaware of his father's subsequent whereabouts and eventual death in 1893 at the Woogaroo Lunatic Asylum. As a teenager he adopted his father's given name "Anderson" as his own.
In 1872, aged nine, Dawson was discharged from the orphanage into the care of his mother's friend. He was later fostered by his aunt Mary Ann Park, who lived with her husband William Park in Gympie with their three sons. He attended the One Mile State School until the age of twelve. After leaving school, Dawson and his foster family moved to the gold mining town of Charters Towers, where his uncle became a publican. He began working as a miner at the age of thirteen, later working as a bullocky and as a subscription collector for The Northern Miner.
In late 1885, Dawson moved to the Kimberley to participate in one of the earliest Western Australian gold rushes. He spent two years in Western Australia, including a period living in Halls Creek, but his prospecting was unsuccessful and he was said to have returned to Charters Towers penniless. In 1899, after Dawson became premier of Queensland, The Worker reported that he had been "mixed up in a supposed nigger massacre" on the Kimberley goldfields, but that it had no been "no massacre at all, only retaliation for cowardly and brutal murder of a mate". Later research has linked this account with a punitive expedition that took place in 1886, in which at least forty Gija people were shot dead with repeating rifles.
Dawson later was elected first president of the Miners' Union. Dawson was originally attracted to politics by the Irish Home Rule question and in 1890 emerged as a political pamphleteer when he published The Case Stated, "an able plea for the creation of an Australian republic." The pamphlet was freely available in Charters Towers, both a trade unionist and a republican stronghold. Throughout 1890, Dawson was closely involved in the running of the Australasian Republican Association (ARA) and in February 1891 was elected the ARA's second president. Dawson was also president, and later organiser, of the district council of the Australian Labour Federation (ALF). During the Queensland shearers’ strike, he was appointed chairman of the Queensland provincial council of the ALF, and was public in his support of socialism. He took up journalism and for a time was editor of the local newspaper, the radical The Charters Towers Eagle. He was also elected to the Local Council in Charters Towers.
Dawson entered politics at the 1893 election, as one of the two Labor candidates for Charters Towers in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland. He won the seat, and retained it at the 1896 and 1899 elections. Dawson was inspired by Marxist economics, and performed speeches to the Social Democratic Federation on Marx and issues surrounding surplus labour.
In May 1899, when parliament resumed after the 1899 election, Dawson was elected leader of the parliamentary Labor Party in succession to Thomas Glassey. He became leader of the opposition, a position only formally created for Glassey in August 1898. When the government of James Dickson resigned on 1 December 1899, Dawson formed a ministry. Although it was defeated as soon as the Legislative Assembly next met, it nevertheless became the first socialist or Labour Party government in the world.
This remains one of the shortest ministries of any state government in Australia. In a remarkable coincidence, Vaiben Louis Solomon's contemporaneous ministry in South Australia outdid Dawson by a single day (1–8 December 1899). John Cain and Thomas Hollway, both premiers of Victoria in the 1940s–50s, had shorter ministries. Cain served for four days and Hollway for only 70 hours. The very shortest belongs to George Fuller, who was premier of New South Wales for seven hours on 20 December 1921. These, however, were not Cain, Fuller, or Hollway's only terms as premier; all three exceeded Dawson for total time in the role.
At the first Federal election for the Senate in 1901, Dawson was returned at the head of the Queensland Labor ticket. While in federal parliament, he was regarded as a good speaker, but struggled with persistent ill health associated with chronic lung trouble from his time as a miner, which worsened after he relocated his family from Queensland to the colder climate of Melbourne. He also struggled with alcoholism, and was absent from parliament for periods, frustrating his colleagues.
In April 1904, when Chris Watson formed the first Federal Labor government, Dawson was given the portfolio of Minister for Defence in light of his prominent status as a former Premier. As Minister for Defence, he clashed with Edward Hutton, the aristocratic English General Officer Commanding the Australian Military Forces, who had resisted being answerable to the executive, and had been viewed as disrespectful by previous defence ministers. Dawson proposed a military restructure which eliminated Hutton's position, which was adopted by his successor after the ousting of the Watson government, resulting in Hutton's resignation and return to England. Dawson reportedly stated that the "most satisfying facet" of his stint as minister had been that he had "pulled down from his pedestal the biggest bounder that had ever commanded the forces in Australia."