Lee Batchelor
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The Honourable Lee Batchelor |
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| 2nd United Labor Party leader Elections: 1899 |
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In office 1897–1899 |
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| Preceded by | John McPherson |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Price |
| Member of the Australian Parliament for South Australia |
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In office 30 March 1901 – 16 December 1903 Serving with Langdon Bonython, Paddy Glynn, Frederick Holder, Charles Kingston, Alexander Poynton, Vaiben Louis Solomon |
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| Preceded by | New seat |
| Succeeded by | Seat abolished |
| Member of the Australian Parliament for Boothby |
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In office 16 December 1903 – 8 October 1911 |
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| Preceded by | New seat |
| Succeeded by | David Gordon |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
10 April 1865 Adelaide, South Australia |
| Died | 8 October 1911 (aged 46) Mount Donna Buang, Victoria |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Political party | United Labor Party |
| Occupation | Trade unionist |
Egerton Lee Batchelor (10 April 1865 – 8 October 1911), known as Lee Batchelor, Australian politician, was the second leader of the South Australian United Labor Party, a member of the First Australian Parliament, and the first member for the Federal Division of Boothby in South Australia, from 1903 to 1911. He was also the first federal politician to be given responsibility for the Northern Territory after it was ceded to the Government of Australia by South Australia.
Lee Batchelor was born in Adelaide, South Australia in 1865 and after the early death of his photographer father he and his two brothers were raised by his mother. He was educated at the North Adelaide Model School and worked there as a pupil-teacher when he was 12. He also worked at the North Adelaide Church of Christ secondary school, but became an apprentice engine-fitter in the government engineering plant in the Adelaide suburb of Islington at 17.
Batchelor soon became active in the labour movement and joined the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (Adelaide) in 1882 and was its president four times between 1889 and 1898. He was also president of the Railway Service Mutual Association. He was elected treasurer of the Trades and Labor Council in 1892 and secretary in 1893. In 1890 he married Rosina Mooney. In 1891, Batchelor was a prominent founding member of the United Labor Party. He was the ULP secretary from 1892 to 1896, and was president in 1898.
Batchelor was nominated for election to the South Australian House of Assembly on behalf of the ULP in 1893. He gained widespread support from the electorate, and was elected at the top of the poll, becoming one of ten of the first Labor Members of Parliament in South Australia, after John McPherson, the first ULP leader, was elected to East Adelaide in a 1892 by-election. Batchelor also defeated a sitting minister in his seat, and outpolled Charles Kingston, a later Premier of South Australia. When McPherson died in 1897, Batchelor became Labor leader, with the party continuing to support the Kingston liberal government. Thomas Price succeeded Batchelor as Labor leader after the 1899 election (and went on to form the world's first stable Labor government, after the 1905 election). John Verran led Labor to form the state's first of many majority governments at the 1910 election.
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