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Speaker, 9 May 1901 to 23 November 1903; 2 March 1904 to 5 November 1906; 20 February 1907 to 23 July 1909
Free Trade Party, 1901 to 1903
Protectionist Party, 1903 to 1906
Anti-Socialist Party, 1906 to 1909

Frederick Holder (1850-1909) was the first Speaker of the Australian Parliament.¹ During his Speakership, he was elected and twice re-elected, unopposed. It would be over 100 years before another Speaker matched this record.

Holder was born in Happy Valley, South Australia. He was educated by his father before attending state schools, followed by the Collegiate School of St Peter. Holder’s early professional history was varied, being headmaster of the Burra Public School, a store manager, town clerk, proprietor of the Burra Record newspaper and mayor of Burra. In 1877 he married Julia Maria Stephens, with whom he shared Wesleyan convictions. They had eight children.

Holder was the Member for Burra in the SA House of Assembly from 1887 to 1901. Most notably he became Premier (and Treasurer) of SA in 1892, but his term only lasted four months. He was elected a delegate to the 1897 Australasian Federal Convention and, through this, drove his belief of free trade and universal adult suffrage and was instrumental in SA becoming the first Australian colony in which women could vote. Holder again became Premier (and Treasurer) in 1899. When Premier, his Government established libraries in country towns, introduced standard time across SA and completed the Bundaleer and Barossa water schemes.

He moved to federal Parliament in 1901 as a Member for SA (and, later, Wakefield), where he was elected Speaker. As Australia’s first Speaker, he had the difficult task of adapting standing orders from both the colonial parliaments and the Westminster Parliament to the new federal arena, which by all accounts he did impartially and decisively.

His contributions were not limited to his role as Speaker. The 1903 report of the Joint Library Committee (of which he was chairman) became a blueprint for the eventual National Library of Australia. He was knighted in 1902.

Holder’s regard for his own health was not as high as his level of influence and advocacy. In the early hours of 23 July 1909, after an all-night sitting, he shifted from the Speaker’s chair onto a seat on the front bench and uttered his final words – ‘Dreadful, dreadful!’ – before collapsing, still in his Speaker’s wig and gown. He died of a cerebral haemorrhage later that afternoon, still in Parliament House, Melbourne, without regaining consciousness. He received a state funeral in Adelaide. The Canberra suburb of Holder is named in his honour.

Rhoda Holder
Rhoda Holder (1880–1925) was born in Burra, South Australia. Her early talent for art was shown when in 1895 she won a prize for drawing from the Board of Governors of the Public Library of SA. Holder studied at the School of Design, Painting and Technical Art – now part of the University of South Australia – from 1898 to 1900. From 1907, she began teaching private classes in drawing, painting, and china painting at a studio in the Adelaide Commercial Chambers. Her portraits, including one of her father, were exhibited at galleries in Melbourne and Adelaide, and her china paintings at the Melbourne Exhibition of Women’s Work. In September 1912 she responded to an advertisement seeking expressions of interest from artists interested in painting portraits for the HMC. Holder’s request to be commissioned to paint her father’s portrait was unsuccessful, the Committee instead choosing George AJ Webb. This portrait of Sir Frederick Holder was donated to the HMC in 1955 by the Holder family.²

Frederick William Holder
by Rhoda Holder
c.1908
Oil on canvas
100.2 x 72.5 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection

References
1. Information in this biography has been taken from the following: R Harry, ‘Holder, Sir Frederick William (1850–1909)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1983; H Manning, ‘Holder, Sir Frederick William (1850–1909)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 2021; Department of the House of Representatives, ‘Questions on notice: Once, twice, three times a Speaker’, Australian Parliament House; Museum of Australian Democracy, ‘Mr Speaker!’; Frederick Holder, ‘Holder, the Hon. Sir Frederick William, KCMG’, Parliamentary Handbook Online. Websites accessed 30 August 2021.
2. ‘Local Art Examinations’, The South Australian Register, 26 June 1895, p. 5; AC Smith, ‘Changing fortunes: the history of china painting in South Australia’, PhD thesis, University of Adelaide, 2008, p. 59; ‘Education’, The Advertiser (Adelaide), 7 February 1907, p. 2; ‘Education’, The Register, 10 February 1912, p. 7; ‘Tit Bits from Aunt Tabitha’, The Gadfly (Adelaide), 19 June 1907, p. 15; ‘The Social Whirl’, The Gadfly, 25 September 1907, p. 11; ‘Painting on China’, The Herald (Melbourne), 22 October 1907, p. 6; ‘Federal Art Exhibition’, The Advertiser, 7 November 1907, p. 9; ‘Society of Arts’, The Register, 11 April 1908, p. 10; ‘Australian Art: Federal Exhibition’, The Register, 3 November 1910, p. 8; ‘Painting on China’, The Express and Telegraph (Adelaide), 25 November 1909, p. 4. Websites accessed 30 August 2021.
Holder painted two other formal portraits of her father, one of which was donated to the National Library of Australia in 1969 and the other held by the Burra Town Council following an invitation extended to all ex-Mayors of the town to have their portraits displayed on the walls of the Council chamber. See R Holder, Portrait of Sir Frederick Holder, National Library of Australia, Bib ID. 1900527; ‘Port Adelaide Magistracy’, The Register (Adelaide), 11 February 1903, p. 4; Commonwealth of Australia, Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, 14 September 1912, p. 1580; National Archives of Australia, NAA: A2, 1912/2035. Websites accessed 23 June 2021.