Career within Commonwealth

Sir Austin Chapman was born in 1864 at Bong Bong, near Bowral (NSW) and attended Marulan Public School until apprenticed to a local saddler at the age of 14. He was later an hotelier and auctioneer and, in October 1889, opened the Royal Hotel at Braidwood. He became Secretary of the Braidwood Hospital and Railway League and held the seat of Braidwood in the NSW Legislative Assembly as a Protectionist (1891-1901). He also supported old age pensions legislation.

In March 1901, Chapman won the seat of Eden Monaro in the first federal election and held it until his death in 1926. He was a leading Protectionist and later Liberal (from 1910) and Nationalist (from 1917).

In the first decade of Commonwealth Parliament, Chapman was the first Government Whip during the Barton Ministry (1901-03), Minister for Defence in the first Deakin Government (1903-04) and Postmaster-General (1905-07) and Minister for Trade and Customs (1908) in the second Deakin Government.  He accompanied Barton to England for the Coronation of His Majesty Edward VII (1902) and was Chairman of the House of Representatives Select Committee on Old Age Pensions (1904) and the subsequent Royal Commission (1905-06). He was also closely associated with the selection of the site for the national capital and introduced a standardised wheat bag known as the ‘Chapman sack’.

After suffering a stroke in 1909, Austin sat on the backbenches until early 1923 when he was appointed Minister for Trade and Customs and Minister for Health in the Bruce-Page Coalition Government. He resigned from the Ministry in May 1924.

Sir Austin was made a Knight Commander in the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in June 1924 and died in Sydney in January 1926.

Sources

Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol 7 (1891-1939), pp 610-11

Commonwealth Parliamentary Handbook 1901-1920, p 68

Who’s Who in Australia 1922, p 48

Unregistered links

1891 - 1901: New South Wales Legislative Assembly - Member for Braidwood
1906 - 1906: International Postal Union Congress - Commonwealth Representative