Francis Michael Forde was born in Mitchell in south-west Queensland, the second son of Irish Catholic immigrants John and Ellen (nee Quirk) Forde. He completed his early education at Christian Brothers’ College in Toowoomba, and later worked as a clerk, schoolteacher and electrical engineer. In 1915, Forde began his long association with the Australian Labor Party and two years later was elected Member for Rockhampton in the Queensland Legislative Assembly.
In 1922, Forde moved to federal politics. He was elected as the Member for Capricornia in the House of Representatives, and held this seat on behalf of the Australian Labor Party until 1946. During his early federal Parliamentary career Forde served as a member of the Royal Commission on the Moving Picture Industry and of the Public Accounts Committee. His first ministerial appointment was as Minister Assisting (and later Minister) in the Trade and Customs portfolio (1929-32) in the Scullin Government.
In early 1932, Forde was elected Deputy Leader of the Australian Labor Party. He retained the position for 14 years under J H Scullin, John Curtin and J B (Ben) Chifley until he lost his seat at the general election in September 1946. During World War II, Forde was also Deputy Prime Minister and acting Prime Minister on several occasions, Minister for the Army and a member of War Cabinet (1941-46), a member of the Advisory War Council (1940-45) and of the Standing Committee on Privileges (1944-46). He was appointed a Privy Counsellor (PC) in 1944 and was Leader of the Australian Ministerial Delegation to New Zealand the same year. The following year, he and Dr H V Evatt led the Australian delegation to the Commonwealth Ministers’ Conference in London and the United Nations Conference on International Organisation (UNCIO) in San Francisco.
Three days after his return to Australia from the UNCIO Conference and following the death of John Curtin, Forde became caretaker Prime Minister (6-13 July 1945), but resumed the position of Deputy Prime Minister when Chifley was preferred as Leader of the Australian Labor Party. Hard working and much respected for his loyalty, Forde’s last federal political appointment was as Minister for Defence (1946). He had also acted in this portfolio on two occasions in the Curtin Government when, as Minister for the Army, he had supported major decisions affecting Australia’s defence. He opposed the Brisbane Line and was closely involved with demobilisation of the armed forces at the end of the war.
After his electoral defeat, Forde served as Australian High Commissioner to Canada (1946-53). It was a successful and happy period in his career. On his return to Australia, he became an organiser for the Queensland branch of the Australian Labor Party and subsequently re-entered Queensland state politics as Member for Flinders in the Queensland Legislative Assembly. Caught up in a party split, Forde was narrowly defeated after serving only one term (1955-57). In 1964 he was the Australian Government representative at the funeral of General Douglas MacArthur, whom he had known well during the war.
Forde married Veronica (Vera) Catherine O’Reilly (CP 936) in 1925. He died several years after her on 28 January 1983, at the age of 92, and is buried in Toowong Cemetery in Brisbane. A suburb in the national capital is named after him.
This person registration was revised as part of the Prime Minsters Papers’ Project (June 2002).
Sources
Canberra Times, 29 January 1983 (obituary)
Commonwealth Parliamentary Handbook, 10th ed (1938-1945) and 28th ed (1999)
Brwon, Elaine, 'Francis Michael Forde' in M Grattan (ed), Australian Prime Ministers (Sydney, New Holland, 2000), pp 238-245
Who’s Who in Australia, 28th ed (1980)