Joseph Cook
The Right Honourable Sir Joseph Cook GCMG 6th Prime Minister of Australia Elections: 1913, 1914 In office 24 June 1913 – 17 September 1914 Monarch George V Governor General Lord Denman Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson Preceded by Andrew Fisher Succeeded by Andrew Fisher Member of the Australian Parliament for Parramatta In office 30 March 1901 – 10 December 1921 Preceded by Seat Created Succeeded by Herbert Pratten Personal details Born (1860-12-07)7 December 1860 Silverdale, Staffordshire, England Died 30 July 1947(1947-07-30) (aged 86) Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Nationality British Political party Labor, Free Trade/Anti-Socialist, Fusion Spouse(s) Mary Turner Relations Richard Cecil Cook (son) Children 8 Religion Methodism Sir Joseph Cook, GCMG (7 December 1860 – 30 July 1947) was an Australian politician and the sixth Prime Minister of Australia. He worked in the coal mines of Silverdale, Staffordshire during his early life, he emigrated to Lithgow, New South Wales during the late 1880s, and became General-Secretary of the Western Miners Association in 1887. A founding member of the Australian Labor Party, Cook was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as Member for Hartley on 3 July 1891. Later Cook switched to the Free Trade Party, and was a minister in the cabinet of Premier George Reid from 1894 to 1899. Cook was Postmaster-General 3 August 1894 to 27 August 1898. During Australia's first federal election in 1901, Cook was elected unopposed to the federal seat of Parramatta, and served as the deputy to Reid, then Alfred Deakin, following the creation of the Commonwealth Liberal Party from Cook's and Deakin's parties. As leader of the Liberal Party, Cook became Prime Minister following the 1913 elections; but he only had a one-seat majority in the lower house and no majority at all in the upper house, so he repeatedly sought to obtain a double dissolution. The outbreak of World War I just before the September 1914 election led to a Labor victory. Following a split in the Labor party in 1916, Cook joined William Morris Hughes' Nationalist Party of Australia, and following the Nationalist victory in the 1917 election, served as Minister for the Navy, then Treasurer under Hughes. In 1921 Cook resigned from the federal parliament, and was appointed Australian High Commissioner in London. During 1928 and 1929, he headed the Royal Commission into South Australia as affected by Federation. He died in Sydney on 30 July 1947 at Bellevue Hill, aged 86.