Crawford Vaughan

Crawford Vaughan
27th Premier of South Australia Elections: 1915
In office 3 April 1915 – 14 July 1917
Preceded by	Archibald Peake
Succeeded by	Archibald Peake
Personal details
Political party	Australian Labor Party, National Labor Party

Crawford Vaughan (1874 – 1947), was Premier of South Australia between 3 April 1915 and 14 July 1917.

Vaughan unsuccessfully campaigned for a seat in the Australian House of Representatives in 1901, and for the Australian Senate in 1903. He then turned to state politics, and entered the South Australian parliament by winning the seat of Torrens in 1905, representing the United Labor Party. He held this seat until 1915, when he became the member for Sturt. He became Treasurer of South Australia in 1910 in the government of Premier John Verran. Verran and Labor lost government in 1912. When Verran resigned the leadership of the party in 1913, Vaughan was elected to the post.

Vaughan and Labor defeated the Liberal Union government led by Archibald Peake in 1915, with 26 of 46 seats in the House of Assembly. His government improved the education system by restructuring the department's senior bureaucracy, by extending the years of compulsory school attendance and by providing better facilities for the intellectually and physically disabled. The government legislated to allow women to serve in the police force and as justices of the peace, while it also improved workers' access to the arbitration system and diminished the court's punitive powers against trade unions. A wheat pool was created, as were land and housing schemes for war veterans. However, the government also passed a law designed to close Lutheran primary schools.

He resigned from the Labor Party in 1916 in support of Billy Hughes' conscription, and was a founding member of the National Labor Party. He remained as premier until 1917, when his government was defeated in parliament over the conscription issue, with Peake becoming Premier for a third time.

He married in 1906 to Evelyn Goode, daughter of Thomas Goode, manager for over 30 years of Canowie Station near Hallett, SA. After her death in 1927 he remarried in 1934 to Millicent Preston-Stanley.

References

• Australian Dictionary of Biography

Political offices
Preceded by Archibald Peake	Premier of South Australia 1915– 1917	Succeeded by Archibald Peake
Party political offices
Preceded by John Verran	Leader of the Australian Labor Party (SA division) 1913– 1917	Succeeded by Andrew Kirkpatrick

Persondata
Name	Vaughan, Crawford
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1874
Place of birth
Date of death	1947
Place of death