page_title: Littleton Groom
section_title: Government minister
hierarchical_section_title: Littleton Groom / Politics / Government minister
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of Littleton Groom, Australian politician.
context_page_description: Sir Littleton Ernest Groom KCMG KC was an Australian politician. He held ministerial office under four prime ministers between 1905 and 1925, and subsequently served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1926 to 1929.
  Groom was the son of William Henry Groom, who had arrived in Australia as a convict but became a prominent public figure in the Colony of Queensland. He was a lawyer by profession, entering federal parliament at the 1901 Darling Downs by-election following his father's death. Groom was first appointed to cabinet by Alfred Deakin in 1905. Over the following two decades he served as Minister for Home Affairs, Attorney-General, External Affairs, Trade and Customs, Vice-President of the Executive Council, Works and Railways, and Attorney-General.
  A political liberal and anti-socialist, Groom was initially affiliated with Deakin's Protectionists, who were later superseded by the Liberals and Nationalists. He came into conflict with Prime Minister Stanley Bruce during the 1920s, and as speaker in 1929 refused to use his casting vote to save the government on a confidence motion.
context_section_description: Groom was Minister of Home Affairs from July 1905 to October 1906 in the second Deakin Ministry and introduced legislation in 1906 to create a federal meteorological department and the creation of the Commonwealth Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIRO) in 1916 was in large part a product of his attempt to create an Australian Department of Agriculture in 1906. In October 1906, Groom became Attorney General until the defeat of the Deakin government in November 1908. Groom passed legislation to defend the Harvester Judgment and successfully introduced legislation providing Commonwealth invalid and old age pensions.
  With the formation of the Fusion government in June 1909, Groom became Minister for External Affairs until the Fusion's defeat in the 1910 election.
  He had carried legislation establishing the High Commission of Australia in London. After the 1910 election, he became a strong opponent of Labor and attacked its establishment of a government-owned Commonwealth Bank and its attempt to gain the power to control monopolies. He was Trade and Customs in the Cook Ministry from June 1913 to September 1914.
  Groom was Vice-President of the Executive Council in Hughes's Nationalist government from November 1917 to March 1918 and Works and Railways from March 1918 to December 1921. He encouraged railway development and was involved in accelerating the construction of Canberra.
  In December 1921 he became Attorney-General again. He was Minister for Trade and Customs and Minister for Health in May and June 1924, following Austin Chapman's resignation on grounds of ill health. Groom led the 1924 Australian delegation to the Fifth Assembly of the League of Nations in Geneva and chaired a committee, which formulated a protocol to establish a system of international arbitration and later voted to support its protocol despite an instruction to abstain. Groom involved himself in attempts to deport "foreign" agitators, but due to his poor handling of these and other matters, he was obliged to resign in December 1925.
caption: Groom c. 1910
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