Born in 1864 in the Victorian town of Bendigo, eucalyptus and soap manufacturer Alfred Hampson entered Victorian state politics in 1911 as the Labor member for Bendigo East. He succeeded after six earlier attempts to enter parliament (four times at state level and twice at the Commonwealth level), and remained a member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly until he won the federal seat of Bendigo at a by-election in 1915.
Hampson remained a member of the Labor Party when the party split over the issue of conscription. However, at the May 1917 federal election, he was challenged and defeated by Prime Minister Billy Hughes who had left the ALP to join the new Nationalist Party. Hampson enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in October 1917 (giving his year of birth as 1868 and his trade as ‘fireman’). Embarking on HMAT Port Sydney in November 1917, he served in the 2nd Australian Light Railway Operating Company in France. Hampson again stood for Parliament against Hughes in 1919 despite being in France during the election campaign. He was unsuccessful despite the ‘excellent work… being put in for him in the electorate by prominent Parliamentarians and Laborites’. Hughes would hold the seat of Bendigo until 1922 when he moved to stand successfully for the seat of North Sydney.
Returning to Australia in October 1919, Hampson was appointed an inspector for the Victorian Closer Settlement Board until his death in 1924. (The Closer Settlement Board was established in 1918 to increase the numbers working the land by acquiring large land holdings and dividing them into small farms. It was responsible for administering solider settlement schemes and settlement of assisted migrants.)
Sources:
- Australian Imperial Force Nominal Role
- Parliament of Victoria, Parliamentary Papers database
- The Australian Dictionary of Biography
- The Parliamentary Handbook, Parliament of Australia
- ‘People and Politics’, Westralian Worker, 12 December 1919, p. 5
- Public Records Office, Victoria
- Nathan Church, Hannah Gobbett, Martin Lumb and Rob Lundie, Commonwealth Members of Parliament who have served in war: Colonial wars and the First World War, Parliamentary Library Research Paper, September 2014
Download Poster (A4/A3 Printable PDF 2MB)