Summary heading
Person registration completed as part of the Prime
Ministers Papers’ Project (April 2002).
Career within Commonwealth
William Patrick Ashley was born in Hay, New South
Wales and served with the New South Wales Bushmen’s Contingent in the South
African War (1901-02). A tobacconist by occupation, he subsequently became an
Alderman and then Mayor of Lithgow. He entered federal Parliament at the 1937
general election, as an ALP Senator for NSW, and retained his seat through the
general elections of 1940, 1946, 1951 and 1955 until his death in June 1958.
Ashley’s political career covered three distinct areas - ministerial,
Parliamentary party and committee work - demonstrating his value to successive
Ministries of the Curtin, Forde and Chifley Labor Governments in the 1940s. In
this period he held the portfolios of Information (1941-43), Postmaster-General
(1941-45), Supply and Shipping (1945-48), Shipping and Fuel (1948-49), and
acted as Minister for the Army (early 1949). He held successive senior Federal
Labor Party positions, including Opposition Whip (1938-41), Deputy Leader (and
later Leader) of the Government in the Senate (1943-49) and was Leader of the
Opposition in the Senate (1949-51). Ashley was also Vice President of the
Federal Executive Council (1943-45), a member of the Production Executive of Cabinet
(1945-46), and a member of various parliamentary committees relating to
regulations and ordinance (1937-38), war expenditure (1941), censorship (1944)
and constitution alteration (1950).
Links to other Commonwealth Persons
Publications
End notes
Sources
Commonwealth Parliamentary Handbook, 1931-38 (9th
ed), 1951-56 (12th ed)
Who’s who in Australia, 1955 (15th ed)