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Benjamin Watkins (26 July 1884 – 23 August 1963) was an Australian politician.


Biography

He was born in Hobart. In 1906 he was elected to the
Tasmanian House of Assembly The House of Assembly, or Lower House, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of Tasmania in Australia. The other is the Legislative Council or Upper House. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Hobart. The Assembly has 25 ...
as the
Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...
member for Queenstown; following the introduction of
proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...
in 1909 he was elected as one of the members for
Darwin Darwin may refer to: Common meanings * Charles Darwin (1809–1882), English naturalist and writer, best known as the originator of the theory of biological evolution by natural selection * Darwin, Northern Territory, a territorial capital city i ...
. In 1917 he resigned to contest the
federal election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated ...
but was unsuccessful; he returned to the House as a member for Franklin in 1919. In 1922 he was defeated and ran for the 1922 federal election unsuccessfully; he returned to the House in 1925, serving until 1934. He was interim leader of the Tasmanian ALP in 1929 when previous leader Joe Lyons resigned to enter federal politics. Watkins relinquished the leadership when Albert Ogilvie was elected the new permanent leader. He left the Labor Party to become an
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in 1931. Watkins died in 1963 in Hobart.


References

1884 births 1963 deaths Independent members of the Parliament of Tasmania Members of the Tasmanian House of Assembly Politicians from Hobart Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Tasmania 20th-century Australian politicians {{Australia-Labor-politician-stub