Stanley Argyle

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The Honourable Sir Stanley Argyle KBE
32nd Premier of Victoria
In office 19 May 1932 – 2 April 1935
Monarch	George V
Governor	William Vanneck, 5th Baron Huntingfield
Deputy	Robert Menzies
Preceded by	Edmond Hogan
Succeeded by	Albert Dunstan
Leader of the National-Liberal Party in Victoria
In office 3 September 1930 – 1931
Deputy	Ian Macfarlan
Preceded by	William McPherson
Succeeded by	Party abolished
Member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly for Toorak
In office 21 October 1920 – 3 December 1940
Preceded by	Norman Bayles
Succeeded by	Harold Thonemann
Personal details
Born	4 December 1867 Kyneton, Victoria Colony, British Empire
Died	23 November 1940(1940-11-23) (aged 72) Toorak, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Nationality	Australian
Political party	National-Liberal (until 1931) United Australia Party (from 1931)
Height	5 ft 11 in (180 cm)
Spouse(s)	Violet Ellen Jessie Lewis ​ ​ (m. 1895; his death 1940)​
Children	4
Relatives	Michael (cousin)
Education	Brighton Grammar School
Alma mater	Trinity College, Melbourne King's College London
Military service
Allegiance	Australia
Branch/service	Australian Army
Years of service	1914–1916
Rank	Lieutenant colonel
Unit	First Australian Imperial Force
Battles/wars	World War I

Sir Stanley Seymour Argyle KBE (4 December 1867 – 23 November 1940), Australian politician, was the 32nd Premier of Victoria.

Early life and education[]

Argyle was born in Kyneton, Victoria, the son of a grazier, and was educated at Brighton Grammar School and Trinity College within the University of Melbourne, where he graduated in medicine. He also studied bacteriology at King's College London.

Career[]

After further study in the United Kingdom, he went into general practice in Kew, and was later a pioneer of radiology in Australia. He was a member of the Kew City Council from 1898 to 1905 and was mayor from in 1903 to 1905. During World War I, he was consultant radiologist to the Australian Imperial Force in Egypt and in France, retiring with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. After the war, he returned to medical practice at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. He invested in dairy farming, milk processing and citrus growing.^[1]

Political career[]

Argyle in 1927

In 1920, Argyle was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly for the seat of Toorak as an independent Nationalist. Between 1923 and 1928, he was Chief Secretary and Minister for Health in the ministries of Harry Lawson, John Allan, Alexander Peacock and William McPherson. When McPherson resigned as leader of the Nationalist Party, Argyle was chosen to succeed him and, in 1931, the party was renamed the United Australia Party (UAP). He led the opposition to Ned Hogan's minority Labor Party government, which was unable to cope with the effects of the Great Depression and was heavily defeated at the May 1932 elections.

Argyle formed a coalition government with the Country Party, led by Allan and later by Albert Dunstan. The government had a huge majority – 45 seats to Labor's 16. Ministers included the rising star of the UAP, Robert Menzies, who became Deputy Premier, Attorney-General and Minister for Railways. Argyle, a firm fiscal conservative, held to the orthodox view that in a time of depression government spending must be cut so that the budget remained in balance. This soon brought him into conflict with both the trade unions and the farmers, but at the time there seemed to be no alternative policy. Argyle was lucky in that the economy began to improve from 1932, and the unemployment rate fell from 27 percent in 1932 to 20 percent in 1934 and 14 percent in 1935. That led a reduction in unemployment relief payments and an increase in taxation revenue, easing the state's financial crisis.

Argyle fought the March 1935 election with an improving economy and a record of sound, if unimaginative, management. With the Labor Party opposition still divided and demoralised, he was rewarded with another very comfortable majority for his coalition government. However, at that point he was unexpectedly betrayed by his Country Party allies. The Country Party leader, Albert Dunstan, was a close friend of the gambling boss John Wren, who was also very close to the Labor leader Tom Tunnecliffe (in the view of most historians, Tunnecliffe was, in fact, under Wren's control^{[citation needed]}). Wren, aided by the Victorian Labor Party President, Arthur Calwell, persuaded Dunstan to break off the coalition with Argyle and form a minority Country Party government, which Labor would support in return for some policy concessions. Dunstan agreed to the deal and, in April 1935, he moved a successful no confidence vote in the government from which he had just resigned.

The UAP (and later its successor the Liberal Party) never forgave the Country Party for that treachery. Henry Bolte, later Victoria's longest-serving Premier, was 27 in 1935, and Dunstan's betrayal of Argyle lay behind his lifelong intense dislike of the Country Party, whom he called "political prostitutes".^{[citation needed]} Argyle remained in politics as Leader of the Opposition until his death in 1940.

In 1926, 1929 and 1939 Argyle attempted to pass a Mental Deficiency Bill which would charge and possibly kill sectors of the population such as homosexuals, those with smaller heads and Aboriginal Australians as they were deemed to be racially inferior. It was passed unanimously in 1939 but was not enacted after the change in opinion caused by the Nazi Holocaust.

Personal life[]

Argyle married Violet Ellen Jessie Lewis of "Spring Grove", Cotham Road, Kew at Holy Trinity Church, Kew on 24 January 1895.^[2] They had two sons and two daughters;^[3] the first of their children, Inez,^[4] was born on 2 November 1895.^[5] The next, Bessie Abbott,^[6] was born on 26 March 1897.^[7] Their elder son, Thomas Milner Stanley, was born on 11 October 1899;^[8] the younger, Hector Stanley, was born on 2 October 1901.^[9] The Argyles lived at Kew until 1919 when they purchased a property, "Halstead", at 29 Bruce Street, Toorak.^[10] In 1933, that house was demolished and a new one built to the design of architect Marcus Martin.^[11] After the death of her husband, Lady Argyle moved to Perth to be near her son Tom and his family. She died in Perth in 1963 at the age of 94. By that time, three of her four children were living in Perth.

Stanley Argyle was a cousin of the British judge Michael Argyle.^[12]

References[]

Bibliography[]

• Geoff Browne, A Biographical Register of the Victorian Parliament, 1900–84, Government Printer, Melbourne, 1985
• Don Garden, Victoria: A History, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1984
• Kate White, John Cain and Victorian Labour 1917–1957, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1982
• Raymond Wright, A People's Counsel. A History of the Parliament of Victoria, 1856–1990, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1992