Talk:Thomas Bridges (Australian politician)

Zillman and Rutledge connection

I can't find any reference that makes the connection between Arthur Rutledge's ousting of Thomas Bridges's friend Leopold Zillman and the 1904 election battle between Arthur Rutledge and Thomas Bridges, but it seems hard to imagine that Thomas Bridges would have felt obliging towards a man who had ill-treated his friend and may have accounted for why Thomas did not choose to submit to Arthur's desire (which appears to be supported by their common political party) to take over his seat in parliament. Kerry (talk) 13:11, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Text from newspaper/magazine cited in the article, not currently available online but out of copyright

The Australian Tropiculturist and Stockbreeder
[21 December 1896]
Men of the Soil
Successful Farmers, No. 16
Mr Thomas Bridges, M.L.A.
On Nundah
This month we have selected another M.L.A. as our subject for biographical note. Mr Thomas Bridges, the present member for Nundah, is emphatically a man of the soil, as was his father before him. Born at Nundah in 1853, Mr Bridges is still a young man. Unlike some others of our sketches, Mr Bridges is not a hungerer after land, believe more in petite culture than is the case with the majority of men of British origin. Four or five acres well cultivated he thinks quite sufficient to occupy his attention. The "little farm well tilled" is within his scope of operations; and yet he has so much faith in farming that his eldest sons have been induced, through the success of their father to turn their attention in the same direction. For many years, Mr Bridges divided his attention between fruit and dairy farming, but of late years he has given the fruit industry his undivided care. Nundah and Zillmere have acquired a reputation as fruit-growing districts, and that reputation is steadily on the increase. Mr Bridges has manfully worked his way to the front, and at the comparatively early age of 30 was elected a member of the local Divisional Board. During the 13 years he was connected therewith, he has had the honor three times of filling the chair, which is a most unusual honor. Mr Bridges is, above all things, a man of the people, which was duly evidenced at the last general election, on which occasion the pax populi placed him at the head of the polling, beating Mr Agnew by 60 votes. In all subjects connected with agriculture, Mr Bridges takes a warm interest, and has specially shown sympathy with the agricultural members union. The passing of the Diseases in Plants Bill and the question of extermination of flying foxes have both received his earnest and willing support.

Parties

I'm not sure about the information that's currently in the lede regarding Bridges' party affiliation: it suggests that there was one "Ministerial Party" that he was a member of prior to 1907, and that he was a member of the Commonwealth Liberal Party from 1909. I'm a bit finicky about Wikipedia's coverage of early political blocs because (in hindsight) we were really sloppy when we rolled out these articles initially and it follows through today.

The re-member page suggests/implies that he was a supporter of the Continuous Ministry, did a stint as an independent after that collapsed, was later one of the Kidston-era Ministerialists, and was a Liberal thereafter. I think it's a bit of a mischaracterisation to call them the "Ministerial Party": as I understand it, they were essentially a morphing political bloc that predated modern party politics, and most sources seem to refer to them as either just the Ministerialists, or the ministerial party in a non-proper-noun sense. I also think it's questionable to refer to them as being one continuous party. I also think the dates are awfully precise considering how ambiguous the early parties were: they don't match their source - re-member (which it's cited to) says he wasn't a Liberal until 1915, but even then, Trove doesn't back up the suggestion that anything dramatic happened in May 1915 in terms of the Ministerialist --> Liberal evolution.

It is also my understanding that the Commonwealth Liberal Party didn't exist at state level, in which case that era would just be "Liberal". The Drover's Wife (talk) 15:25, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Happy to see it rewritten as I agree that the loose alliances that existed back then are hardly "parties" as we understand that term today. In relation to Thomas Bridges, in 1909, [1] lists him as clearly pro-Kidston, and various other newspaper articles talk of him as the "Government candidate in Nundah" (which I assume to mean pro-Kidston) but I cannot see any reference to any named political party. Somewhat amusingly The Worker describes him as always being on the Government's side no matter who the Government is, suggesting no particular "party" leaning. The final election he contested was 1912 where he was described as "Liberal". According to this, it meant "#Liberal: Liberal Party (from c1902 - 1917: developed in 1917 into the National Party through an amalgamation of the Liberal Association and National Federation)" so I am presuming this 1912 reference is to the Liberal Association. Given that he was a farmer, it's hardly surprising to find him in a predecessor to the National Party, I guess. I think for these early politicians it might be best to remove any mention of party in the lede and just mention their alliances as best we understand them in the relation to specific election or terms of parliament as it all seems to be pretty fluid. Kerry (talk) 05:10, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Oops, he contested in 1915 as well. I need to check what I can find on that. Kerry (talk) 05:11, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

This newspaper article confirms he was "Liberal" in the 1915 election, but there's still the question of whether this was a formalised membership of a political party or just a statement of where his general ideology lay. Other candidates in that same article are described as "Socialist" not ALP. Some are described as "F.U." but I am not sure what that is, Farmers Union maybe? Kerry (talk) 05:22, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

As you noted, that parliament link refers both to a "Liberal Party" (post-1902) and a "Liberal Association" that merged with the National Federation in 1917, so it would seem that there was at least one formal party there - I'm at uni all week but I'll try and trace down the history there and write an article. Labor was known as Labor from the 1890s so I suspect the "Socialist" was the notoriously anti-Labor Queensland press being dramatic. I would expect (assuming Queensland went similarly to the other states) that the "National" refers not to the future Country Party but to those who left the Labor Party in the 1917 split - again, I'll try and trace that history and write an article for clarity's sake. Same with the Farmers Union - Trove confirms that that's what the "F.U." stood for. In terms of the lede, we could perhaps either just more vaguely note that he was a Ministerialist and later a Liberal and leave it at that, or else leave it out entirely - I'm not too fussed either way. The Drover's Wife (talk) 15:12, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Certainly if we have an article that gives an overview into the development of political alliances and then political parties in Qld, it will make it a lot easier to tell the story of many of these earlier politicians as we can link terms like Ministerialist, Opposition, Socialist and Liberal through to that article. Kerry (talk) 18:28, 28 January 2015 (UTC)