Robert Best

Sir Robert Wallace Best, KCMG (18 June 185627 March 1946) was an Australian lawyer and politician who served in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. He was a Senator for Victoria from 1901 to 1910, and then represented the Division of Kooyong in the House of Representatives from 1910 to 1922. Best served in cabinet in the second and third governments of Alfred Deakin. Before entering federal politics, he also served in the Victorian Legislative Assembly from 1889 to 1901, where he was a government minister.

Early life Best was born on 18 June 1856 in Collingwood, Victoria. He was the son of Jane (née Wallace) and Robert Henning Best, immigrants from Ireland. His father was a farmer and later worked as a customs officer.

Best was educated at Templeton's School in Fitzroy. He left school at 13 and became a clerk in a printing office and then worked for a solicitor where he took articles and matriculated in 1875. He studied law at the University of Melbourne and was admitted as a solicitor in 1881. He married Jane Langridge the same year. He was elected as an alderman on Fitzroy City Council almost continuously from 1883 to 1897 and served as mayor in 1888 and 1889.

Federal politics Best was a strong supporter of the federation of Australia and resigned from the Legislative Assembly and was elected to the Australian Senate in the 1901 election. He was the inaugural Chairman of Committees in the Senate, serving from 1901 to 1903. He was Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate from February 1907 until November 1908 in the third Deakin Ministry, where he was responsible for tariff and excise bills.

Best was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1908. He served as Minister for Trade and Customs in Alfred Deakin's Fusion ministry from June 1909 to April 1910. He lost his seat in the landslide to Labor at the 1910 election, but was soon returned to Parliament at a by-election for the House of Representatives seat of Kooyong. He supported the introduction of conscription and he became a Nationalist in 1917. At the 1922 election, he was beaten narrowly on Labor preferences by John Latham, who ran as an independent on the slogan, "Get Rid of Hughes". His third daughter, Helene Best, was a pianist who trained at the Melbourne Conservatory. She went to London in 1935. A son, Arthur Best, played for Melbourne and St Kilda in the Victorian Football League.