Joseph Carruthers

Sir Joseph Hector McNeil Carruthers (21 December 185710 December 1932) was an Australian politician who served as Premier of New South Wales from 1904 to 1907.

Carruthers is perhaps best remembered for founding the Liberal and Reform Association, the forerunner to the modern Liberal Party of Australia (New South Wales Division). Zachary Gorman has argued that Carruthers played a central role in re-orientating Australian liberalism to sit on the centre-right of the political divide, influencing political developments at both the Federal and State level.

Early years Carruthers was born in Kiama, New South Wales to Charlotte Prince and John Carruthers. He attended William Street National School and Fort Street High School in Sydney. After boarding at George Metcalfe's High School, Goulburn, he went up to the University of Sydney and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1876. He took his Master of Arts degree two years later and was admitted to practice as a solicitor, where he remained for some years. In December 1879, Carruthers married Louise Marion Roberts.

Political career In 1887, Carruthers obtained the most votes for the four-member Legislative Assembly seat of Canterbury, on a platform of local issues, free trade, social reform, land reform, industrial conciliation and arbitration, and an elective Legislative Council. He held Canterbury until 1894, when he switched to the new seat of St George.

Carruthers party won the July 1904 election on "an alliance of Liberalism, temperance and Protestantism". Curruthers officially opened the blast furnace at Lithgow, in May 1907, an event that began the modern iron and steel industry in Australia.

In 1905–06, a royal commission inquired into land scandals and investigated accusations made against Carruthers and the behaviour of his law firm. He testified before it eight times. The commissioner found that nothing in the evidence implicated Carruthers, but he gave up his law practice for a few years. These accusations were raised again in the 1907 election. To distract attention, even suggestion secession, he launched an attack on the Federal Government's recent increase in tariffs, particularly on wire-netting. As part of that role, he steered the Sydney Harbour Bridge Bill through what was at times quite a hostile Legislative Council. He died on 10 December 1932. A state funeral was attended by many notable Sydney citizens at All Saints Church, Woollahra on 12 December 1932, and later at his burial at South Head Cemetery.

Assessment

Though he never entered Federal politics, Carruthers was one of the most important politicians of his era. As Reid's effective deputy he rallied free traders to the Federation cause, successfully resisted Deakin's plan to establish the Federal capital at Dalgety, instituted NSW's system of local government, and in later years led the fight against the abolition of the Legislative Council. In this way, he directly influenced the composition of all three tiers of government. Carruthers was a successful Premier, laying a pattern of how liberal governments would operate. Most importantly, the LRA largely endures in the modern NSW Liberal Party. He was a friend of Frederick Earle Winchcombe, who was the founding President of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Australia. Carruthers followed Winchcombe as President of the Society in 1911, serving only one term of office.

Always a popular MP with his constituents, Carruthers has by later commentators been judged "a peppery little man" (John La Nauze) of "untiring energy" (Percival Serle).

Honours Carruthers was created a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in 1908.