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Fast facts: Francis Forde
Personal profile
Born:
18 July 1890, Mitchell, Queensland
Education:
Christian Brothers College, Toowoomba, Queensland
Employment:
teacher, railway clerk, electrical engineer
Memberships:
Roman Catholic Church; Australian Natives Association; Irish National Association
Marriage:
25 February 1925, Wagga Wagga, New South Wales
Children:
Mary (1928); Mercia (1930); Clare (1932); Gerard (1935)
Died:
28 January 1983, St Lucia, Brisbane
Buried:
Toowong Cemetery, Brisbane
Honours:
Privy Councillor (1944)
Born:
1894, Wagga Wagga, New South Wales
Died:
9 November 1967, St Lucia, Brisbane (buried Toowong Cemetery, Brisbane)
Political profile
Terms as PM:
6–13 July 1945
Terms as MP:
Queensland Legislative Assembly: 1917–22 (Rockhampton); 1955–57 (Flinders)
House of Representatives: 28 February 1923 – 31 October 28 September 1946 (Capricornia)
Portfolios:
Assisting Trade and Customs: 22 October 1929 – 4 February 1931
Trade and Customs: 4 February 1931 – 6 January 1932
Army: 7 October 1941 – 1 November 1946
Defence: 15 August – 1 November 1946
Political memberships:
Australian Labor Party 1917–83; Advisory War Council 29 October 1940 – 31 August 1945
After:
Australian High Commissioner to Canada 1946–53
Quiz facts
- his prime ministerial term of eight days is the shortest in Australian history
- in 1935 he lost the Labor Party leadership ballot by one vote to John Curtin and in 1957 lost his State seat also by only one vote
- Forde was 92 years old when he died, making him Australia’s second longest-lived Prime Minister
- in 1945 he led Australia’s delegation to the conference in San Francisco to set up the United Nations
- remembered in his home state as the man who erased the ‘Brisbane line’, though he denied the 1942 War Cabinet had discussed concentrating Australia’s defences south of Brisbane if Japan invaded the north