Brief Biography 

Very little is known about the early life of Bill Slater in the last decade of the nineteenth century. He later gave his birth date as May 20th 1890, but no birth certificate has been found to confirm this. We do know that he attended Armadale Primary School in Melbourne. His father, William Slater, died when Bill was only 12, forcing Bill to leave school to help support his mother Marie (nee O’Rielly) and sisters May (Toots) and Dorothy (Dor) Slater.

In his early teens he joined the Try Boys’ Society, a youth movement created to combat the larrikinism prominent on Melbourne streets at the time. Later the Try Society found him work as an office boy with a law firm and perhaps here began a fondness for the law which lasted throughout his life. In 1912, aged 22, he moved to Mildura to work as a solicitor’s clerk in the law firm of P.T. Park. In Mildura he also joined the local Australian Labor Party.

After previously being rejected on health grounds, Bill was accepted into the Australian Infantry Force at the end of 1915. He was strongly opposed to taking up arms against his fellow man, so he joined the 10th Field Ambulance as a stretcher-bearer. In November 1916 he was sent to France, where he experienced the horror of life in the trenches with its extraordinary loss of human life. After eight months in the trenches, he was wounded and sent back to England. While recovering he was unexpectedly elected as a Victorian Labor MP (despite being 10,000 miles away), having been nominated by friends back in Australia. After six months in England he journeyed back to Australia.

Upon his return to Australia Bill lived and worked in Hamilton, travelling to Melbourne for sittings of Parliament. In 1924, when a Labor government was elected in Victoria for the first time, he was appointed Attorney General – at the age of 35 possibly the youngest person to hold this office in Australia. In the following years he held additional portfolios as Solicitor General and Minister for Agriculture in the Labor governments of 1927-8 and 1929-32. From 1932 he was an opposition MP, but his reputation for fairness and judgement resulted in him being elected as speaker (pictured left) of the House of Assembly during the 1940 Country Party Government led by Albert Dunstan.

In the years between the wars, Bill’s legal career was also progressing. He graduated as a Barrister and Solicitor in 1922 and then worked for a while in partnership with Maurice Blackburn in Hamilton. Later, when he moved to Melbourne in 1930, he set up on his own in a small office in Unity Hall, undertaking legal work for the Australian Railways Union. By 1935 he was keen to expand his practice and so took his brother-in-law, Hugh Gordon into partnership. So began the now famous firm of Slater and Gordon.

In 1942, Australia’s Labour Government under John Curtin appointed Bill as Australia’s first Minister (Ambassador) to the USSR. He made a remarkable eight-week journey to Russia through the US, Africa and the Middle East, before presenting his credentials to President Kalinin (pictured left). As Ambassador, he struggled to establish a working relationship with a suspicious Soviet Regime, finding it difficult to obtain any useful information. Eventually, ill health forced him to return to Australia, where he gradually recovered and resumed his political career.

In the Cain government of 1945, Bill was once more appointed Attorney General as well as Chief Secretary. His most significant legislation during this period involved setting up a Trotting Control Board to regulate the Harness racing industry in which bribery and corruption were rife. This, however, made him an enemy of the notorious John Wren, who financed a massive campaign against Bill in Dundas. This campaign, along with the Federal Labor Government’s Bank Nationalisation Legislation, led to Bill losing Dundas in the 1947 election, having held it continuously for 30 years. Bill would make a comeback in 1949, winning the Upper House Province of Doutta Galla and serving again as Attorney General in Cain’s ministry of 1952-55.

William Slater Biography – long

Very little is known about the early life of Bill Slater in the last decade of the nineteenth century. He later gave his birth date as May 20th 1890, but no birth certificate has been found to confirm this. We do know that he attended Armadale Primary School in Melbourne until he was 12, when the death of his father forced Bill to get a job selling newspapers to help support his mother and two younger sisters. He was still keen to learn, however, and spent many evenings reading in the Prahran Municipal Library.

In his early teens he joined the Try Boys’ Society, a youth movement created to combat the larrikinism prominent on Melbourne streets at the time. Perhaps Bill was on the road to becoming a larrikin himself; he was brought before the Try Society “Court” for breaking the club rules on so many occasions that expulsion from the society was recommended. Only after he made a direct approach to the Society’s founder, William Mark Forster, was the expulsion order rescinded.

Bill would later recall one of his first jobs as a painter’s assistant. He was told to paint a trellis (a very tedious task) which he completed – and then promptly quit! Later the Try Society found him work as an office boy with a law firm and perhaps here began a fondness for the law which lasted throughout his life.

During this period he was developing a strong radical philosophy based on his observation of the many injustices existing in society. He spent his evenings at night classes run by the Try Boys’ Society and attended Socialist Party meetings. He joined the history classes that author and historian Bernard O’Dowd ran in the evenings, and became a member of the Clerk’s Union.

Throughout his childhood (and as an adult) he loved sport and excelled as a cricketer, footballer and swimmer; he won quite a few long-distance swimming events including a three-mile Yarra river swim. He would later reminisce about the day he rode his bicycle the 90 miles from Melbourne to Colac to take part in a swimming event – which he won – and then rode all the way home again!

In 1912, aged 22, he moved to Mildura to work as a solicitor’s clerk in the law firm of P.T. Park. Here he became friends with William Jeffries Smith, an Englishman who was staying at the same boarding house. With Percy Robbins they pooled their resources to purchase a 2 acre block, called “Angels’ Rest”, in order to grow dried fruits. Bill spent weekends ploughing and planting vines, while in the evenings he continued to study for his matriculation.

In Mildura he played with the local football team and came to be accepted as one of the “Mildura boys”. He also joined the local Australian Labor Party branch and was influenced by Labor stalwarts such as Peter McDonald and Father Jim Ryan. They urged him to stand as a candidate for the State Electorate of Mildura-Swan Hill.

In Europe at this time came developments that were to change Bill’s life. In August 1914, war had broken out between the massive armies of Germany and the allied forces including France, Britain and Russia. The result, after a few months of fighting, was a general stalemate with both sides dug in to a labyrinth of trenches and any attacks resulting in the slaughter of hundreds of men. In the Gallipoli Campaign of 1915, ten thousand Australian troops were killed, among them Bill’s friend William Smith. After the failure of this campaign the allies withdrew, but the fighting continued on the Western Front in France.

After previously being rejected on health grounds, Bill was accepted into the Australian Infantry Force at the end of 1915, at the age of 25. He was strongly opposed to taking up arms against his fellow man, so joined the 10th Field Ambulance as a stretcher-bearer and, in November 1916, was sent to France.

Bill kept a diary of his experiences (See The War Diaries of William Slater) over the course of 1917 and 1918. In it he gives his views of events both local and international, describing the day to day life of a close observer of the war, as well as his views on the War, how it was being fought, conscription and the chances for Peace. He describes the loss of so many of his friends and associates such as the “Mildura Boys” he’d gotten to know. His work consists of stretcher bearing from the front lines back to various “Dressing Stations”; his daily entries confirming the old adage about War being 90% boredom and 10% terror. Finally he is wounded by an artillery shell and sent back to England.

Back in England he slowly recovers his health in various hospitals and recovery centres, then manages to do some travelling around England and Scotland. He attends rallies and meetings and gets to see English democracy in action. To his surprise, he is elected to the Victorian parliament in his absence, his name being put forward while he was at the front. This puts pressure on the authorities to send him back to Australia and release him from active service. Finally he manages to make it home in mid 1918, returning by ship around Africa.

Upon his return to Australia, Bill’s first task was to go to Hamilton, the main town in his electorate of Dundas, to meet his constituents and thank the people who had worked to get him elected. For the next few years he lived and worked in Hamilton, travelling to Melbourne for sittings of Parliament. In 1924, when a Labor government was elected in Victoria for the first time, he was appointed Attorney General – at the age of 35 possibly the youngest person to hold this office in Australia.

In the following years he held additional portfolios as Solicitor General and Minister for Agriculture in the Labor governments of 1927-8 and 1929-32. Although some of these periods in office were short, he managed to prepare and have passed some important legislation. He was most proud to have been responsible for legislation relating to Workers’ Compensation, the creation of Public Libraries and regulating the Adoption of Children.

In the 1932 election, Bill was declared defeated in the electorate of Dundas. He took the opportunity to return to study for a degree in Economics at Melbourne University, in the hope that this would help him understand the causes of the Depression, which was bringing so much misery at the time. Three months later, however, a recount showed he had actually won Dundas by 21 votes, so he returned to Parliament.

For the rest of the 1930s he was an opposition MP, but he gained a reputation for fairness and judgement with members of all political parties. His popularity resulted in him being elected as speaker of the House of Assembly during the 1940 Country Party Government led by Albert Dunstan.

In the years between the wars, Bill’s legal career was also progressing. He graduated as a Barrister and Solicitor in 1922 and then worked for a while in partnership with Maurice Blackburn in Hamilton. Later, when he moved to Melbourne in 1930, he set up on his own in a small office in Unity Hall, undertaking legal work for the Australian Railways Union. By 1935 he was keen to expand his practice and so took his brother-in-law, Hugh Gordon, into partnership. So began the now famous firm of Slater and Gordon. In his career both as a lawyer and a politician, Bill worked for justice for ordinary working people, helping to lighten the burden that fell on them in these difficult times.

Before the war, when he was living in Mildura, Bill had met Mary (also known as Maisie) Gordon, the daughter of David Gordon, an Irish-born horticulturalist, and his wife Mary. Both Bill and Mr Gordon were fond of an argument and, before one visit, Maisie pleaded with Bill not to disagree so much with her father. Afterwards, David Gordon complained to his daughter: “what was wrong with that young fellow today – I couldn’t get a decent fight out of him!”

Later, after he and Maisie were married, Bill formed close friendships with all members of the Gordon family. David and Mary Gordon had six children: Mary, the eldest, had a Master of Science from the University of Melbourne; Jessie, a Master of Arts, later married James Steele, a Major General in the British Army; Marjorie married Alan Henry, a Professor of Chemistry and lived in Khartoum; Isabel trained to be a nurse at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and then worked overseas; John studied Agriculture and took over the family property at Irymple when Mr and Mrs Gordon retired to Box Hill; and Hugh, the youngest, qualified in Law and became Bill’s partner in the law firm Slater and Gordon.

In contrast to the Gordons, who were scattered around the world, Bill’s mother Marie and sisters May (Toots) and Dorothy (Dor) remained in Brunswick – a Melbourne suburb close to Essendon, where Bill and Mary settled early in the thirties and raised their three children, Bill, John and Helen.

During these years Bill was generally in good health, in spite of the extraordinary amount of work he was doing. He did have peritonitis and suffered from duodenal ulcers for a time, but managed to recover with the help of a special diet with foods carefully prepared by his wife. After these illnesses he became more particular about his diet, being careful to eat only simple, nutritious food. He did not smoke or drink. To relax he would, when possible, spend weekends and holidays with his family at their beach house at Point Lonsdale. During the winter months he enjoyed VFL football on Saturdays and went for family walks to nearby Queens Park on Sundays.

As well as his political and legal work, Bill somehow found the time and energy to devote to a number of societies and organisations. At various times he became President of the Law Institute of Victoria, Chief President of the Australian Natives Association, served on the executive of the Council of Civil Liberties and was a Trustee of the Melbourne Cricket Club and a Vice President of the Essendon Football Club. He also kept in touch with his boyhood pals from the Try Society and wartime comrades from the 10th Field Ambulance, attending their annual re-unions.

In 1939, 22 years after Bill had left the trenches of France, Europe was again at war. In September Germany had invaded Poland, forcing France and England to declare war on Germany. In June 1941, after Germany’s failure to subdue Great Britain, Germany’s leader Adolf Hitler turned his attention to the Soviet Union, disregarding the non-aggression pact he had signed with communist dictator Josef Stalin in 1939. However the harsh Russian winters and the Soviet’s strong defence of Stalingrad turned the tide of the war by the end 1942.

To express support for the beleaguered Soviets, Australia’s Labour Government under John Curtin decided to appoint a Minister (Ambassador) to the USSR. Foreign Minister Herbert “Doc” Evatt nominated Bill Slater for the position, knowing his reputation as a “good Labor man” and the respect he had gained on all sides of politics. And so, at the age of 52, Bill stood down from his position of Speaker of the House to became Australia’s first Minister to Russia.

Again he started a diary to keep a record of his travels and experiences. (See the War Diaries Mission to Moscow 1943 – Travel Diary of a World at War.) In it he describes the extraordinary journey he had to make to get to Russia in 1942; travelling across the Pacific to America, then down through Central America to Brazil, flying over the Atlantic to Central Africa, up through Egypt and Iran and finally to Moscow. He gives fascinating insights into the countries he travels through and gives a vivid impression of a world at war.

In Russia he describes the difficulties of setting up the embassy in Kuibyshev, travels to Moscow to present his credentials and meet the Russian Foreign Minister Molotov, and gives details of day to day life in the Soviet Union at the time. Although a strong supporter of the Soviet Regime, he struggles with the secrecy and lack of information provided to him. He finds there is very little for him to actually do, which leads him to have nervous problems, not helped by a change of diet, which leads to a return of his duodenal issues.

His health increasingly worsens to the point where he decides to see treatment in Egypt, but actually he has decided to quit the job and return to Australia. This creates a rift with Australian Foreign Minister ‘Doc’ Evatt, not helped by a journalist reporting criticism that Bill had made of the Soviet Regime while in Moscow (it is not clear if Bill made the comments or not). Again he travels the world to return home, again through Africa, South and North America, via train through Canada, and finally by ship back to Australia. He returned to resume his role of speaker in the Victorian Parliament in late 1943.

In Australian Labour politics the post-war period was one of turmoil, with factions causing serious rifts within the party. In the Cain government of 1945, Bill was once more appointed Attorney General as well as Chief Secretary. His most significant legislation during this period involved setting up a Trotting Control Board to regulate the Harness racing industry in which bribery and corruption were rife.

This, however, made him an enemy of the notorious John Wren, who financed a massive campaign against Bill in Dundas. This campaign, along with the Federal Labor Government’s Bank Nationalisation Legislation, led to Bill losing Dundas in the 1947 election, having held it continuously for 30 years. Bill would make a comeback in 1949, winning the Upper House Province of Doutta Galla and serving again as Attorney General in Cain’s ministry of 1952-55.

In 1956, Bill made a return journey to Europe. Travelling with his wife Mary and brother-in-law General Sir James Steele, he attended memorial services to mark the 40th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme and then visited some of the places where he had served. He wrote in his diary of that time:

I got a thrill as we got to the places that I had known – Steenwerck and the Bailleul where I walked round the square where we so frequently walked in 1917. Then we moved on to Neuve Eglise – where I was wounded – and the ridges of Messines. These ridges were so calm and peaceful now that I could never believe they were so scarred when I last saw them. Ploegsteert Wood was green and graceful and has completely recovered from the battering of 1917.

Bill also visited the grave of his brother-in-law and legal partner, Hugh Gordon. Hugh was a pilot with the Pathfinders, a unit that flew aircraft to guide bombers to their targets over Germany during World War 2. He was on his thirtieth and final mission when his plane was shot down over Holland. In a tragic co- incidence, the news reached Bill on the day he arrived safely back in Australia from Russia. Bill wrote of Hugh’s grave at the Jonkerbos War Cemetery near Nijmegen:

The cemetery is about four miles out of the city in quiet low wooded country and is in beautiful order with lawns neatly cut and the graves all covered with flowers. A great lump rose in my throat as I stood in front of Hugh’s grave and read the inscription:

Flying Officer H.L. Gordon,

RAAF 15th June 1943. Age 34

Till the day breaks and the shadows flee away.

I sadly placed the wreath of poppies and laurel leaves and came away and wondered what he would have been today in the full bloom of manhood, had he but been spared the supreme sacrifice he had to make.

Bill Slater died on June 19th 1960, after a short battle with cancer. He was still a Member of Parliament when he died, having been an MP for 41 of his 70 years. A state funeral was held and thousands of people lined the route to Springvale Crematorium. Tributes were paid to him from all political parties and many sections of the community. Oswald Barnett, of the Methodist Church, wrote that “he was one of the few who entered politics with a pure heart and, despite all its delusions and temptations, he remained pure and untainted to the end”.

In the Victorian Parliament, Labor MP Clive Stoneham said that Bill Slater’s special mission in life was to “elevate the underdog.he was intolerant of injustice, and was at all times a dauntless defender of civil liberties”. From the other side of the House, Henry Bolte said he always found him to be a “clean straight shooter” and the leader of the Country Party, Sir Albert Lind, said “I held Bill Slater in the highest possible regard, not only politically but also personally. No one knows better than I what he did for all types of people in this state and the assistance he gave to persons who could not afford to pay for legal advice. As a result he won his way into the heart of all who knew him”.

Jack Galbally, a Labor MLC, described him as “a man of intense loyalty and integrity. As a lawyer he established a large practice and won the respect and admiration of the whole profession”. He concluded in his address to the House: “He was the gentlest of men, the fierce side of his nature was apparent only when striking at bigotry, prejudice and injustice. Long, I hope, will we treasure his memory”.

Finally, in the words of the Reverend Victor James of the Unitarian Church:

It can be truly said, his life will be his most lasting memoir.