Australia’s first ever speaker in the House of Representatives died in the chamber, uttering the immortal words, “Dreadful. Dreadful”, Australia’s shortest prominent political speech.
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Over a century later, another speaker lost her job for chartering a helicopter to replace a one-hour car journey.
In the intervening years are a multitude of stories of speakers, deputy speakers and clerks, the little-known figures who have overseen the functioning of the house since the dawn of Federation.
The Department of the House of Representatives has commissioned a new project at the Australian National University to create a parliamentary dictionary listing the biographies of these figures.
Project coordinator Stephen Wilks, of the ANU School of History said speakers and clerks were people in Australia’s history who “haven’t had their due”.
“A lot of Australian political reporting, understandably, tends to be, over the years, on the cut and thrust of party politics, elections, leadership coups and so on. There's also a very big history of the parliament in itself,” he said.
“Through these biographies, I think we're also capturing a fair bit of that, and there are some very interesting people who made big contributions to Australian public life.”
Frederick Holder, speaker from 1901 to 1909, died while the chamber was in committee, and his deputy had taken over in the chair.
“He was sitting around on the front bench talking to some pals of his, suddenly turned rather pale, and uttered these immortal words, 'Dreadful. Dreadful',” Dr Wilks said.
“He collapsed, and was taken to a bedroom or a sick bay somewhere, in the old parliament building in Spring Street in Melbourne, where he later expired that day.”
When Old Parliament House finally opened in Canberra in 1927, its first months were marred by tragedy when two clerks of the house died in quick succession - Walter Gale, on July 27, and his successor John McGregor, on September 28.
Staff in the house were still reeling from the tragedy that had occurred during the opening ceremony of what was then the provisional parliament house, when a Royal Australian Air Force pilot lost control of his plane during the opening ceremony and plunged to his death, in front of hundreds of spectators.
Dr Wilks said he was also looking forward to delving into the back story of the parliament’s longest-serving clerk, Frank Green, from 1937-1955.
Contrary to the hallowed reputation of discretion of most clerks, Green was in several media profiles as a decorated war veteran who won a military cross in Flanders and wrote a battalion history.
“He also was very personally close to some prime ministers, particularly [John] Curtin and [Joseph] Lyons,” Dr Wilks said.
“He wrote a famous memoir, Servant of the House, an absolute goldmine of anecdotes of Australian political history.
"The famous story of the distressed Curtin, wandering the grounds of the Lodge at night, worrying about Australian troops returning by sea from the Middle East - that was actually recorded by Green.”
Dr Wilks said the project, which is expected to be completed by 2020, will include all speakers, including those still living, like Bronwyn Bishop and her ill-fated 2015 helicopter ride.
He said this was unusual for the National Centre of Biography, which doesn’t usually cover living figures.
“Knowledge of the parliament is important, so I think there's a broader public education involved,” he said.
“It gives you a sense of Australian parliamentary heritage and history as something worth celebrating and recording. There's no more important institution than the parliament itself.”
Once complete, The Dictionary of the House of Representatives Project: Speakers, Deputy Speakers and Clerks of the House will appear online with the ANU National Centre of Biography and the parliamentary website.
