page_title: William Ward, 2nd Earl of Dudley
section_title: Governor-General of Australia
hierarchical_section_title: William Ward, 2nd Earl of Dudley / Governor-General of Australia
caption_attribution_description: English: William Humble Ward, 2nd Earl of Dudley (1867-1932), in viceregal uniform as Governor-General of Australia, 1908-1911
context_page_description: William Humble Ward, 2nd Earl of Dudley, KP, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, TD, PC, was a British aristocrat, politician, and military officer who served as the fourth Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1908 to 1911. He was previously Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1902 to 1905, and also a government minister under Lord Salisbury.
  Dudley was the son of William Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley, and succeeded to the earldom at the age of 17. He inherited a substantial fortune and the palatial family seat at Witley Court. Dudley sat with the Conservative Party in the House of Lords, and was Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade from 1895 to 1902. He was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland when Arthur Balfour came to power, and was regarded as a competent administrator. His time in Dublin led to his inclusion as a character in James Joyce's Ulysses.
  In part due to the urging of King Edward VII, a longtime acquaintance, Dudley was appointed Governor-General of Australia in 1908. His extravagance and pomposity made him unpopular among the general public, and his attempts to interfere in political matters rankled both prime ministers he worked with.
context_section_description: As a Conservative, Dudley could not have expected preferment from the Liberal government which came to office in 1905, but King Edward VII pressed the Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman to offer Dudley the post of Governor-General of Australia, and Campbell-Bannerman agreed, since there was apparently no suitable Liberal candidate available. Dudley arrived in Sydney on 9 September 1908, and soon established a reputation for pomp, ceremony and extravagance which was unwelcome to many Australians, particularly the Labor Party and the radical press such as The Bulletin. Not long after his arrival, he found himself swearing in a Labor cabinet under Andrew Fisher, so the Labor Party's disapproval of his vice-regal style became an important issue.
  The new Governor-General soon found himself involved in another controversy. It was part of Labor policy to establish an independent Australian navy. The Liberal opposition, on the other hand, supported the campaign for Australia to raise money to build ships for the Royal Navy: the so-called Dreadnought campaign. So when Dudley made a speech in support of the Dreadnought campaign, he was straying into party politics, leading to a tense relationship with Fisher. In 1909 Fisher's minority government resigned, and Dudley refused him an early election. The Liberals returned to office under Alfred Deakin, solving Dudley's immediate problems. But although Fisher was careful not to criticise Dudley in public, the Governor-General had acquired a reputation as "anti-Labor," which made him unpopular with half the Australian electorate.
  
  In April 1910 Labor won a sweeping election victory and Fisher returned to power. Relations between Governor-General and Prime Minister were soon once again frosty. Dudley's insistence on maintaining two very expensive Government Houses, in Sydney and Melbourne, on travelling around the country in vice-regal pomp, and on chartering a steam-yacht to circumnavigate the continent, infuriated Fisher, a frugal Scottish socialist. By October Dudley had recognised the impossibility of his position and asked to be recalled. He left Australia on 31 July 1911, unmarked by any official ceremony. Alfred Deakin wrote of him: 
  His ambition was high but his interests were short-lived … He did nothing really important, nothing thoroughly, nothing consistently … He remained … a very ineffective and not very popular figurehead.
caption: Lord Dudley in his viceregal uniform
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