William Archibald (politician)

Born in St Pancras, London, Archibald was orphaned at 10 and educated to primary school level in England, then worked as an apprentice piano builder before emigrating first to New Zealand in 1879 and thence to New South Wales and Victoria in 1881 before arriving in South Australia in 1882.

Archibald was initially employed on the Port Adelaide wharves before working for the South Australian Government Railway workshop, where he was elected to the executive council of the Railway Services Mutual Association.

A foundation member of the United Labor Party (the predecessor of the Australian Labor Party), Archibald gained pre-selection for the South Australian House of Assembly Electoral district of Port Adelaide and was comfortably elected at the 1893 election.[1]

Archibald rose to prominence in parliament and gained a reputation as a "hard-working member who always thoroughly mastered his subject". He also successfully introduced a number of important bills into parliament, including legislation on social issues like the establishment of public libraries, worker's compensation and rent relief. Archibald also served as President of the South Australian branch of the Labor Party from 1901 to 1902 and Caucus chairman from 1905 to 1908.

Archibald retired from state parliament in 1910 in order to stand as the Labor candidate for the safe federal seat of Hindmarsh at the 1910 federal election. He was elected unopposed.

After travelling to England as an official Australian parliament representative to the coronation of King George V in 1911, Archibald was re-elected in 1913 and 1914 and appointed Minister for Home Affairs by Prime Minister Andrew Fisher.

In 1916, an internal party row over conscription led to a split in the ALP and Archibald, along with Prime Minister and Labor leader Billy Hughes, left the ALP to form the National Labor Party. For his support, Hughes appointed Archibald Minister for Trade and Customs in the short lived Second Hughes Ministry. Archibald followed Hughes into the Nationalist Party of Australia later in 1917. He narrowly won reelection as a Nationalist in the election held later that year. However, Hindmarsh was naturally a Labor seat, and he was defeated by Labor's Norman Makin in the 1919 general election.

The three-times-married Archibald worked as a book-seller in Semaphore until his retirement and died in Adelaide in 1926. He was survived by his third wife and a son and daughter from his first marriage.

• Jaensch, Dean; Rutledge, Martha (1979). "Archibald, William Oliver (1850 - 1926)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol. 7. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISSN 1833-7538. Retrieved 8 November 2022.