View full image

President, 1 July 1938 to 30 June 1941
Nationalist Party, 1923 to 1931;
United Australia Party, 1931 to 1944;
Liberal Party of Australia, 1944 to 1947

A farmer and Premier of Tasmania before entering the Senate, John Blyth Hayes (1868-1956) was born in Bridgewater, Tasmania and educated by his schoolteacher mother. He joined the mining rush to WA in the late 1880s, returning to Tasmania around 1906 to farm in the Scottsdale district. Active in local farming affairs, Hayes served a term as president of the North-Eastern Agricultural and Pastoral Association and as secretary of the Scottsdale Board of Agriculture (1912-20).¹

Elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly in 1913 as ‘the farmers’ candidate’, Hayes was Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party Opposition within two years. After the Liberals (later the Nationalists) formed government in 1916, he held several ministerial portfolios including Agriculture (1916-23). With the state in financial trouble and his own party in upheaval, Hayes became a reluctant Premier in 1922, leading Tasmania’s first short-lived coalition government (Nationalist-Country Party). However, he resigned a year later in August 1923 having lost the support of his party.

The following month Hayes was selected to fill a casual vacancy for Tasmania in the Senate, marking the beginning of a long career in federal Parliament which saw him re-elected to the Senate on four occasions, firstly as a member of the Nationalist Party (1923-31), then the United Australia Party (1931-44) and lastly as a Liberal (1944-47). Unsurprisingly, in the Senate he frequently spoke on rural matters, arguing that the farming community, which he regarded as key to Australia’s prosperity, was neglected by the government compared to the support given to the manufacturing industry.²

After serving as Temporary Chair of Committees (1933-38), Hayes was elected President of the Senate in 1938. Affable and well-liked by colleagues from all sides, Hayes only faced one motion of dissent after ruling not to adjourn the Senate while a censure motion was debated in the House of Representatives.³

Hayes lost the presidency in 1941 to Labor Senator James Cunningham when the absence of two government senators resulted in a tied ballot for the position. Under senate standing orders, the election was then decided by lot, with the Clerk of the Senate drawing a candidate’s name from a box and the candidate whose name remained becoming President.

Deciding not to contest the 1946 election, Hayes left the Senate at the end of his term in 1947. Retiring to Launceston, the devout Anglican devoted himself to church work, including as churchwarden of St Barnabas, Scottsdale. Hayes died in 1956 and was survived by his wife Laura.

Duncan Max Meldrum
Artist Max Meldrum (1875-1955) was born in Edinburgh and arrived in Melbourne in 1889. He attended the National Gallery of Victoria Art School where he studied painting with Bernard Hall. In 1899, he won a travelling scholarship and studied at the Académie Colarossi in Paris. The following year Meldrum studied at the Académie Julian and later exhibited at the Salon de la Société des Artistes Français (Paris). During this time, he became an associate of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (Paris). In 1912, Meldrum returned to Melbourne where he set up his studio and art school on Collins Street. Among his students were Clarice Beckett and Arnold Shore and he was a great influence on his friend, Archibald Colquhoun. Meldrum was a foundation member of the Australian Art Association in 1912 and was elected president of the Victorian Artists’ Society from 1916 to 1917. A regular exhibitor in Melbourne and Sydney, he also exhibited with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in London. Regarded as the father of Australian tonalism, Meldrum’s representational style won him the Archibald Prize in consecutive years in 1939 and 1940.⁴

John Blyth Hayes
by Duncan Max Meldrum
1938
Oil on canvas
89.8 x 69.4 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection

References
1.Unless otherwise noted, information is sourced from S Bennett, ‘Hayes, John Blyth (1868–1956)’, The Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate Online Edition, Department of the Senate, Parliament House, published first in hardcopy 2004; S Bennett, ‘Hayes, John Blyth (1868–1956)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1983; Parliamentary Library, ‘, ‘Hayes, the Hon. John Blyth, CMG,’ Parliamentary Handbook Online. Websites accessed 7 June 2021.
2. See, for example J Hayes, ‘Governor-General’s Speech: address- in-reply’, Senate, Debates, 3 December 1929, pp. 549–53; J Hayes, ‘Customs tariff’, Senate, Debates, 4 November 1931, pp. 1424–28.
3. ‘Death of the Honorable John Blyth Hayes, C.M.G’, Senate, Debates, 30 August 1956, pp. 9–10; Bennett, Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate, op. cit.
4. J McGrath and B Smith, ‘Meldrum, Duncan Max (1875–1955)’,  Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1986, accessed 15 April 2021; ‘Meldrum, Duncan Max’, A McCulloch, S McCulloch and E McCulloch Childs, eds, The New McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Aus Art Editions in association with The Miegunyah Press, 2006, pp. 674–75.