William Morris Hughes CH KC (1862 - 1952)

Born 25 Sep 1862 in Pimlico, London, England, United Kingdom

Ancestors

Husband of Mary Ethel (Campbell) Hughes GBE — married 26 Jun 1911 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Descendants

Died 28 Oct 1952 at age 90 in Lindfield, New South Wales, Australia

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Biography

Billy Hughes CH KC is Notable.

Billy Hughes CH KC was born in Middlesex, England.

William 'Billy' Hughes CH KC was an Australian politician, and was the seventh Prime Minister of Australia, from 1915 to 1923. He was the longest serving Federal parliamentarian at 51 years of continuous service as a member of Australia’s House of Representatives from the first parliament in 1901 to the twentieth in 1952. Before that he spent seven years in the New South Wales parliament.

William Morris 'Billy' Hughes was born on 25 September 1862 in Pimlico, London, England, son of William Hughes, a carpenter from North Wales employed at the Houses of Parliament, and his wife Jane, née Morris. ^[1] His father was Welsh speaking, a deacon of the Particular Baptist Church and a conservative in politics. His mother, a farmer's daughter from Llansantffraid, Montgomeryshire, who had been in service in London, was English speaking and Anglican. She was thirty-seven when she married, and William Morris was her only child. She died when Billy was seven and for the next five years he lived with his father's sister, Mary Hughes, at Llandudno, Wales, where he went to school, spending his holidays on the Morris family farm.

From 1874, he spent five years as a pupil-teacher at St Stephen's School, Westminster, where he had large classes of boys little younger than himself, but where he was well grounded in English history and literature. A lively youth, fonder of games than of lessons, he won a prize for French and caught the eye of the inspector, Matthew Arnold. He remained as an assistant after his five years apprenticeship, and joined a Volunteer Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers nearby.

Billy Hughes CH KC migrated from England to Queensland.

In October 1884, aged 22 years, Billy embarked for Queensland (Australia) as an assisted migrant on the Duke of Westminster, reaching Brisbane on 8 December. For two years he led a roving life, taking various jobs and acquiring knowledge of the outback, as well as material for reminiscences that grew more colourful with time, including railways tally clerk, rock breaker, boundary rider, blacksmith's striker, well sinker, farm labourer and swagman. Finally, as a galley-hand on a coastal ship, he arrived in Sydney, New South Wales. After a period of acute poverty he found a steady job as assistant to an oven-maker and domestic stability in a boarding-house near Moore Park, in Sydney's inner eastern suburbs.

Hughes married twice. In 1886, or thereabouts, he married Elizabeth Cutts of Sydney (thus like Andrew Fisher marrying his landlady's daughter). There were seven children: Arthur, Ethel, Lily, Dolly, Ernest, Charles, and William who died in infancy. Elizabeth died in 1906. The second marriage, in June 1911 in Melbourne, Victoria, was to Mary Campbell. ^[2] The couple had a daughter, Helen, born in 1915. ^[3]

In 1891 he opened a small mixed business with Elizabeth, in Balmain, in Sydney's inner western suburbs, which also sold books and political tracts. He also worked as a door-to-door umbrella repairer to survive.

Billy spent seven years in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, before being elected to the House of Representatives. He became the longest-serving Federal parliamentarian, with 51 years of continuous service, as a member of the House of Representatives from the first parliament in 1901 to the twentieth in 1952. Billy was the seventh Prime Minister of Australia, from 1915 to 1923. ^[4][5] While Prime Minister during the First World War, he became known as the 'little digger' and was an advocate for compulsory military service. During his long, stormy career he chopped and changed his political ties, representing four different parties. Three of them expelled him! Hughes was one of the fastest political wits in the history of the parliament.

In the New Year Honours 1941, Billy was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) for his 'service as Prime Minister of Australia from 1915 to 1923'. ^[6]

Aged 88 years, he passed away on 28 October 1952 in Lindfield, in Sydney's leafy northern suburbs and is buried in Macquarie Park Cemetery. ^[7][8]

Arrangements for his funeral included the representation of his children from his first marriage, three sons and two daughters. ^[9]

His estate was distributed with two-thirds going to his wife Mary Ethel (Campbell) Hughes GBE, and for the maintenance of David Evan Hughes. Five thousand pounds of the remaining third of the estate was divided between his daughters, Mrs Ethel Bourke, Miss Lily Hughes and Miss Dolly Hughes. The remainder of that third was distributed between his sons, Ernest Morris Hughes and Charles Leonard Hughes, his adopted son Arthur Hughes, and his niece, Miss Edith Haynes. ^[10]

Research note

Of his genealogy, the ancestry of his mother Jane Morris of Llansaintffraid, Montgomeryshire, is fairly straight forward to trace. However, the ancestry of his father is not so clearcut. From the 1881 census records, we know he was a 'joiner' born in Holyhead in Anglesey, North Wales, about 1825. Of his parents, his marriage record (1861) records his father as William Hughes 'mason'. The only William Hughes who was a mason in North Wales was of Bodedern, 7km SW of Holyhead, who baptised a son William in Dec 1822.

DNA

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Please direct any questions about the DNA analysis or any DNA confirmation data to Veronica Williams 21:37, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Sources

1. ↑ UK FreeBMD Birth Index Dec qtr 1862, vol 1a, page 230; registered at St George Hanover Square
2. ↑ Victoria Marriage Index #3273/1911
3. ↑ Guide to the Papers of William Morris Hughes
4. ↑ National Museum of Australia - William Hughes
5. ↑ Museum of Australian Democracy (Old Parliament House) - Billy Hughes
6. ↑ Australian Honours: CH; accessed 11 Nov 2023
7. ↑ New South Wales Death Index #30151/1952; registered at Chatswood
8. ↑ Find A Grave Index," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVVC-CFXR : 13 December 2015), William Morris Hughes, 1952; Burial, North Ryde, , New South Wales, Australia, Macquarie Park Cemetery and Crematorium; citing record ID 11085162, Find a Grave, http://www.findagrave.com
9. ↑ 1952 'Arrangements For Funeral of W. M. Hughes', Northern Star (Lismore, NSW : 1876 - 1954), 31 October, p. 1. , viewed 28 Jan 2023, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article96452889
10. ↑ 1952 'HUGHES WILL VALID', The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1931 - 1954), 9 December, p. 2. , viewed 28 Jan 2023, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article248849932

• Find A Grave: Memorial #11085162
• Australian War Memorial
• 1952 'CEREMONIAL SERVICE FOR W. M. HUGHES', Northern Star (Lismore, NSW : 1876 - 1954), 29 October, p. 1. , viewed 28 Jan 2023, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article96452674
• 1952, Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate (NSW : 1876 - 1954), 28 October, p. 2. , viewed 28 Jan 2023, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page10031516

See also:

• Fitzhardinge, L F. 'Hughes, William Morris (Billy) (1862–1952)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1983, accessed online 25 May 2019. This article was first published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 9, (MUP), 1983.
• Wikipedia: Billy Hughes.

See link also:

• https://www.finance.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-10/COMCAR-one.pdf

Andrew Fisher, Treasurer as well as Prime Minister from 29 April 1910, was not the only government member to find the motor car a benefit. Shepherd recalled: Mr Hughes [Attorney-General] would sometimes dash into the Prime Minister’s room and ask for the car to go down and meet his daughter who would be arriving by steamer at an early hour in the morning or late at night. On one occasion, he was told that the driver had gone for the day and there was no way of getting in touch with him. ‘Well, how am I going to get down to meet my daughter,’ asked ‘Billy’ in a most aggrieved manner. I could have suggested a cab or a taxi, but my desire to remain in the service imposed discretion of speech. (Andrew Fisher was living in Albert Park near to Port Melbourne pier).