William Higgs

William Guy Higgs (18 January 1862 – 11 June 1951) was an Australian politician who served in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. He was a Senator for Queensland from 1901 to 1906, and then represented the Division of Capricornia in the House of Representatives from 1910 to 1922. He served as Treasurer of Australia from 1915 to 1916, under Billy Hughes.

Early life Higgs was born on 18 January 1862 in Wingham, New South Wales. He was the oldest of at least ten children, including nine boys, born to William Guy Higgs Sr. and Elizabeth Gregg. His parents ran a general store; his father was born in St Columb Major, Cornwall, England, while his mother was born in Ballyconnell, County Cavan, Ireland.

Higgs and his family moved to Parramatta in 1869 and then to Orange in 1872. He attended state schools except for a brief period at a Catholic convent school when it was the closest available; his parents were Anglican and he had to wait outside during religious instruction. He left school at the age of 13 and was apprenticed to the Western Advocate as a printer's assistant. Higgs moved to Sydney in 1882, working briefly for the commercial printer John Sands and the Daily Telegraph. He eventually found a steady job as a compositor for The Sydney Morning Herald.

In 1886, Higgs was elected to the board of the New South Wales Typographical Association, the foremost trade union for workers in the printing industry. Later that year, he left the Herald to become the association's paid secretary. He resigned that position in 1889 and opened a printing firm, Higgs & Townsend, on Oxford Street, in partnership with Samuel D. Townsend.

Early political involvement Despite his limited education, Higgs read widely in politics and became an avowed socialist. He was prominent in the Australian Socialist League, and in 1891 appeared as a witness before the Royal Commission on Strikes. He provided the inquiry with an analysis of the history and theory of socialism, and told it that "the State should be the sole employer of labour [...] it should provide everything, all the necessaries of life and all the comforts". Higgs was secretary of the South Sydney Labor Electoral League, and at the 1891 election stood unsuccessfully as a candidate in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of South Sydney. He was elected to the House of Representatives at the 1910 general election as the member for Capricornia, Queensland. He was the first former Senator to be elected to the House of Representatives, and the first Queenslander to have served in both houses of federal parliament.

He served as Treasurer in the ministry of Billy Hughes from 1915 to 1916, until he resigned due to his opposition to Hughes' support for conscription during World War I. Hughes and the other pro-conscriptionists were expelled from the party soon afterward. However, Higgs was somewhat troubled by the expulsion of many of his old friends. He was also concerned that Labor was taking an increasingly radical turn. Despite this, he remained with Labor, even becoming deputy leader in 1918. However, in 1919, when Labor opposed Hughes' plans to increase the federal government's powers over industry and commerce, Higgs supported them and was expelled from the party in January 1920. After eight months as an independent, he joined Hughes' Nationalist Party.

Life after politics Higgs later became a campaigner for the plight of the mentally ill and was the Honorary president of the Society for the Welfare of Mental Patients.

In 1924, Higgs was appointed chairman of the royal commission into the finances of Western Australia, as affected by Federation.