'Sir Littleton Ernest Groom',
KCMG (
22 April 1867 –
6 November 1936) was an
Australian Commonwealth Minister,
Speaker of the House of Representatives and Australia's 10th longest serving federal Parliamentarian (33 years 1 month).
Groom was born in
Toowoomba, Queensland and educated at
Toowoomba Grammar School, where he was dux of the school and captain of the football and cricket teams, and
Ormond College,
University of Melbourne where he won the 1890 University Scholarship at the Final Honours Examination in Laws. He then worked as a lawyer, Crown Prosecutor and acting judge before winning the first federal by-election in Australian history, as a
Protectionist for the seat of
Darling Downs, caused by the death of his father
William Groom.
Groom was a member of every non-
Australian Labor Party ministry from 1905 to 1926, holding at one time or another the Home Affairs,
External Affairs, Trade and Customs, Works and Railways and
Attorney General portfolios as well as serving as
Speaker of the House of Representatives. Groom introduced legislation in 1906 to create a federal meteorological department and the
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) was in large part a product of Groom's attempts to create an Australian Department of Agriculture. He also found the time in 1924 to lead the Australian delegation to the Fifth Assembly of the
League of Nations in
Geneva in 1924 and chaired the first committee.
As Speaker, Groom helped oversee the move of federal Parliament from
Melbourne to the newly constructed capital
Canberra but his refusal to use his casting vote as speaker in a controversial matter lead the Government to strongly oppose his re-election and he lost the seat of Darling Downs at the
1929 election. Groom was joint-author with
Sir John Quick of the ''Judicial Power of the Commonwealth'', and was part author of various Queensland legal publications. From 1932 to 1936 he was chairman of the bankruptcy legislation committee, and in earlier years he also acted on various royal commissions and select committees. He won back the seat at the
1931 election and was the member for the Darling Downs at the time of his death in Canberra following a short illness.
A member of the General Synod of the
Anglican Church, Groom was
knighted on
1 January 1924 for his services to politics. In 1984 the
Division of Groom was named in his honour and he is commemorated by a number of features in
Toowoomba, including Groom Park.
Groom's elder brother, Henry Littleton Groom, was a long serving member of the
Queensland Legislative Council.
Reference
★
External link
★ David Carment, '
Groom, Sir Littleton Ernest (1867 - 1936)',
Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 9,
MUP, 1983, pp 130-133.