Labor Leader - 26 April 1928 - 1 October 1935
Labor Prime Minister - 22 October 1929 - 6 January 1932
Biography
James Scullin, who was born in Ballarat, Victoria, had little education. He ran a grocery store and became an organiser for the Australian Workers' Union and an active member of the Labor Party. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 1910 to 1913 and became president of the Victorian branch of the party in 1917, while working as a journalist. He was re-elected to parliament in 1922. He became leader of the Labor Party in 1928 and Prime Minister after electoral victory in 1929.
Australia's ninth Prime Minister was unlucky in his timing. The New York Stock Exchange failure - the 'Wall Street crash' - took place in the first week of his government. He faced the crisis of economic depression by attempting to manage a failing economy while implementing Labor reforms.
This was probably the right moment for a Prime Minister remembered as 'a teetotal, non-smoking, budget pruner' who was also an honest and stoical man.
Information & photo from the National Archives of Australia & Dictionary of Famous Australians' Ann Atkinson (Allen & Unwin, 1995)]