page_title: Lee Batchelor
section_title: State
hierarchical_section_title: Lee Batchelor / Political career / State
caption_attribution_description: Group photograph of South Australian United Labor Party parliamentarians in the Parliament of South Australia following the 1893 election. From left to right: Top Row - Richard Hooper MP, Frederick Coneybeer MP, Ivor MacGillivray MP, William Archibald MP, Lee Batchelor MP. Middle row - Robert Guthrie MLC, David Charleston MLC, Andrew Kirkpatrick MLC, William Robinson MLC. Bottom row - Frank Hourigan MP, John McPherson MP, Alexander Poynton MP, Richard Wood MP, Thomas Price MP.
context_page_description: Egerton Lee Batchelor was an Australian politician and trade unionist. He was a pioneer of the Australian Labor Party in South Australia, which at the time was known as the United Labor Party. He was a member of the South Australian House of Assembly, leading the ULP from 1898 until his resignation in 1899 to accept a ministerial post in a non-Labor government, with the party's approval. Batchelor entered federal politics in 1901 and held cabinet posts in the first three ALP governments. He was Minister for Home Affairs under Chris Watson, and then served two terms as Minister for External Affairs under Andrew Fisher. He suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 46 while climbing Mount Donna Buang.
context_section_description: Batchelor was nominated for election to the South Australian House of Assembly on behalf of the ULP in 1893. He gained widespread support from the electorate, and was elected at the top of the poll, becoming one of ten of the first Labor Members of Parliament in South Australia, after John McPherson, the first ULP leader, was elected to East Adelaide in a 1892 by-election. Batchelor also defeated a sitting minister in his seat, and outpolled Charles Kingston, a later Premier of South Australia. When McPherson died in 1897, Batchelor became Labor leader, with the party continuing to support the Kingston liberal government. Thomas Price succeeded Batchelor as Labor leader after the 1899 election (and went on to form the world's first stable Labor government, after the 1905 election). John Verran led Labor to form the state's first of many majority governments at the 1910 election.
  Following the fall of the Kingston ministry in December 1899 and the brief premiership of Vaiben Louis Solomon, Batchelor was invited to join Frederick Holder's government as the Minister for Education and Agriculture. As the Minister, Batchelor legislated for a new teacher training scheme coupled with university education. Although the Labor Party pledge of 1899 refused the right of members to join a non-Labor administration, caucus released Batchelor from this constraint: Holder's was essentially the old Kingston ministry with which Labor had associated closely. Batchelor resigned from caucus and from the leadership and became the first Labor member in Australia to join a non-Labor ministry, with the party's unanimous approval.
caption: ULP parliamentarians following the 1893 colonial election.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)"}