Edward Ernest Heitmann (3 June 1878 – 30 January 1934), was an Australian

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

and member of the

Western Australian Legislative Assembly The Western Australian Legislative Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of Western Australia, an Australian state. The Parliament sits in Parliament House in the Western Australian capital, Perth. The Legislat ...

from 1904 to 1917, then a member of the

Australian House of Representatives The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Australian Senate, Senate. Its composition and powers are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Austra ...

until 1919. Edward Heitmann was born in

California Gully California Gully is a suburb of Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. The suburb is located north-west of the Bendigo city centre along Eaglehawk Road. At the 2021 census, California Gully had a population of 4,476. California Gully is named for the C ...

Bendigo Bendigo ( ) is a city in Victoria, Australia, located in the Bendigo Valley near the geographical centre of the state and approximately north-west of Melbourne, the state capital. As of 2019, Bendigo had an urban population of 100,991, mak ...

, Victoria on 3 June 1878. The son of

carpenter Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenters tra ...

and

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...

Herman Heitmann and Katherine ''née'' Roberts, he was educated locally. He became a

miner A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face; cutting, blasting ...

at an early age, eventually graduating to shaftsman before qualifying as a mine engine driver. In 1895 he moved to

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to ...

but by the following year he had returned to Victoria, where took courses at the

Bendigo School of Mines and Industries The Bendigo School of Mines was established in Bendigo, Australia in 1873 to provide technical education, predominantly for the mining industry. It was then known as the ''Bendigo School of Mines and Industries'' from 1883 to 1959, ''Bendigo Techn ...

. On 29 June 1896 he married Emma Jane Johns; they had a son and two daughters before her death in 1905. In 1909 he married Ada Maude Cooke, with whom he had two sons and a daughter. In 1899, Heitmann returned to Western Australia to work on the Murchison goldfields. He became increasingly involved in the

Labor movement The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other. * The trade union movement ...

, becoming president of the

Day Dawn Day Dawn is a ghost town in the Mid West/upper Murchison region of Western Australia. It was a significant mining town and mine in the late nineteenth century. Located a short distance south-west of Cue, rich gold deposits were discovered ...

Engine Drivers' Association, and organising secretary of the

Australian Workers' Union The Australian Workers' Union (AWU) is one of Australia's largest and oldest trade unions. It traces its origins to unions founded in the pastoral and mining industries in the 1880s and currently has approximately 80,000 members. It has exerci ...

. On 24 June 1904 he was elected to the Western Australian Legislative Assembly seat of Cue on a Labor ticket. He held the seat until 4 November 1913, resigning it to contest the seat of Geraldton in a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election ( Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election use ...

. Although he did not win the seat of Geraldton on this occasion, he had only eleven months to wait before winning the seat in the

general election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

of 21 October 1914. During his time as Member for Geraldton, Heitman was a member of the Western Australian Health Commission inquiring into Miners Phthisis, and he contributed to the establishment of a

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in w ...

sanatorium A sanatorium (from Latin '' sānāre'' 'to heal, make healthy'), also sanitarium or sanitorium, are antiquated names for specialised hospitals, for the treatment of specific diseases, related ailments and convalescence. Sanatoriums are ofte ...

Wooroloo Wooroloo is a town on the outer fringe of the Perth metropolitan region, located off Great Eastern Highway in the eastern part of the Shire of Mundaring. At the , Wooroloo had a population of 254. History The name comes from a Noongar word ...

. Until 1917 he was one of the Scaddan

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government ...

's main

backbench In Westminster and other parliamentary systems, a backbencher is a member of parliament (MP) or a legislator who occupies no governmental office and is not a frontbench spokesperson in the Opposition, being instead simply a member of the " ...

critics, especially with regards to the 1916

Nevanas affair The Nevanas affair was a political scandal in Western Australia that was partly responsible for the downfall of John Scaddan's Labor government. Early in 1914, Scaddan and one of his ministers signed a contract with the London financier S. V. ...

. In January 1917, he and

Rufus Underwood Rufus Henry Underwood (31 December 1863 – 8 October 1945) was an Australian politician who represented the Western Australian Western Australian Legislative Assembly, Legislative Assembly seat of Electoral district of Pilbara, Pilbara fro ...

attended a conference in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

which aimed to merge

Billy Hughes William Morris Hughes (25 September 1862 – 28 October 1952) was an Australian politician who served as the seventh prime minister of Australia, in office from 1915 to 1923. He is best known for leading the country Military history of Austra ...

National Labor Party The National Labor Party was formed by Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes in 1916, following the 1916 Labor split on the issue of World War I conscription in Australia. Hughes had taken over as leader of the Australian Labor Party and ...

with

Joseph Cook Sir Joseph Cook, (7 December 1860 – 30 July 1947) was an Australian politician who served as the sixth Prime Minister of Australia, in office from 1913 to 1914. He was the leader of the Liberal Party from 1913 to 1917, after earlier servi ...

's liberals. On 20 March, he resigned his Legislative Assembly seat in order to contest an

seat as a

Nationalist Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...

. Shortly afterwards, the Western Australian branch of the

Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms ...

followed its federal counterpart's lead in expelling its pro- conscription members, including Heitmann. On 5 May 1917, Heitmann was elected to the Australian House of Representatives seat of Kalgoorlie. During the next two years he was in charge of transport arrangements for the demobilisation of the Australian Imperial Force. He was defeated in the federal election of 13 December 1919, and thereafter spent some time in

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater A ...

working in

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. By 1921 he was farming at Laanecoorie, Victoria, and the following year contested the Victorian seat of Eaglehawk without success. In 1927 he returned to Bendigo, spending eighteen months as organisation secretary for the Advance Bendigo and the North League. In later life he suffered often from poor health, spending some time in the military hospital at Caulfield. He died at Bendigo on 30 January 1934, and was buried at Bendigo Cemetery. One of his nephews, Jack Heitman, was later a member of the

Western Australian Legislative Council The Western Australian Legislative Council is the upper house of the Parliament of Western Australia, a state of Australia. It is regarded as a house of review for legislation passed by the Western Australian Legislative Assembly, Legislative A ...

from 1963 until his death in 1977.

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Heitmann, Edward Ernest 1878 births 1934 deaths Nationalist Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Australia Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Kalgoorlie Members of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly Australian miners People from Bendigo Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Western Australia Australian people of German descent National Labor Party members of the Parliament of Western Australia 20th-century Australian politicians