Edward Findley
Edward Findley | |
|---|---|
| Born | Template:Birth date Bendigo, Victoria, Australia |
| Died | October 26, 1947 (aged 83) Caulfield, Melbourne, Australia |
| Occupation(s) | Publisher, politician |
| Years active | 1880s–1930s |
| Known for | Australian Labor Party senator for Victoria (1904–1917, 1923–1929); Victorian Legislative Assembly member (1900–1901) |
Edward Findley (8 September 1864 – 26 October 1947) was an Australian publisher and politician. Representing the Australian Labor Party (ALP), he held a Senate seat for Victoria from 1904 to 1917 and again between 1923 and 1929. Prior to his federal career, he served in the Victorian Legislative Assembly from 1900 to 1901.
Early life
Born in Bendigo, Victoria (known as Sandhurst at the time), Findley began his career as a compositor apprentice at The Bendigo Independent. In the early 1880s, he relocated to Melbourne to work for the Daily Telegraph, which ceased operations in 1892. A committed trade unionist, he was elected president of the Australasian Typographical Union in 1897. Findley launched the weekly publication The Boomerang in 1894, though it only ran for eight editions. Two years later, he contributed to founding Toscin, a radical union-focused weekly that continued until 1906.
Political career
In 1900, Findley secured election as an Australian Labor Party representative for the Melbourne seat in the Victorian Legislative Assembly. However, on 25 June 1901, he was expelled due to charges of seditious libel after republishing a piece critical of King Edward VII in the Toscin. He chose not to participate in the subsequent by-election but unsuccessfully contested the Melbourne East by-election held simultaneously and made another unsuccessful attempt in 1902.
Findley was elected to the Senate during the 1903 election. Between 1911 and 1913, as an honorary minister in the second Fisher Ministry, he oversaw Senate duties connected with the portfolios of Home Affairs and Postmaster-General. In 1911, he married Lilian Foyle. After losing his seat in 1917, he returned to the Senate in 1922 but was defeated again in 1928.
From 1930 until his passing, Findley served as a government-appointed director of Commonwealth Oil Refineries Ltd., a state-owned oil retail enterprise founded by the Hughes ministry in 1920 and later sold to British Petroleum in 1952. He died at his residence in Caulfield, Melbourne, leaving behind his wife and one daughter.