William Holman

William Arthur Holman (4 August 1871 – 5 June 1934) was an Australian politician who served as Premier of New South Wales from 1913 to 1920. He came to office as the leader of the Labor Party, but was expelled from the party in the split of 1916. He subsequently became the inaugural leader of the NSW branch of the Nationalist Party.

Holman was born in London and arrived in Australia at the age of 17, becoming a cabinet-maker in Sydney. Before being elected to parliament, he was active in the labour movement as a journalist and union official. He was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1898. He began studying law part-time, and was called to the bar in 1903. In 1910, Holman became Attorney-General of New South Wales in the state's first Labor government, under Premier James McGowen. He succeeded McGowen as premier in June 1913, and later that year led his party to victory at the 1913 state election.

In 1916, Holman supported the "Yes" vote in the referendum on overseas conscription and was consequently expelled from the Labor Party. He and his supporters remained in government with the backing of the opposition Liberal Reform Party, and the two groups subsequently merged to form the NSW branch of the new Nationalist Party, under Holman's leadership. The new party won a large majority at the 1917 election. However, it was heavily defeated at the 1920 election, in which Holman lost his own seat. After his defeat, he returned to his legal practice and was made King's Counsel. He was elected to the House of Representatives for the United Australia Party at the 1931 federal election, but was in poor health and died before completing his first term.

Holman was born in St Pancras, London, England in 1871, the son of William Holman, an actor. His mother was also on the stage under the name of May Burney. He was educated at an Anglican school and was apprenticed as a cabinetmaker. He attended night classes and literary societies.

He attributed his success and love of learning to the teaching of Matilda Sharpe who taught Latin to classes of up to 80. There were bad times in the British theatre during the 1880s, and the Holmans were glad to obtain an engagement with Brough and Boucicault in Australia. The family migrated to Melbourne, Victoria in October 1888. The burning of the Bijou Theatre in Melbourne in 1889 resulted in their move to Sydney, New South Wales.

As a cabinet maker in Sydney, Holman was interested in the ideas of John Stuart Mill, William Morris, Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin, and became very active in the Australian labour movement. He joined the Single Tax League, the Australian Socialist League, and the newly formed Labor Electoral League, a forerunner of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). In the Australian Socialist League, he mixed with anarchists and socialists, and met future Prime Minister Billy Hughes, as well as Creo Stanley, Ernie Lane, Henry Lawson and J. D. Fitzgerald. Holman and Hughes were associated with Arthur Desmond on the scandal sheet paper, The New Order.

In 1893, Holman he became Secretary of the Railways and Tramways Employees' Union, representing the union on the Sydney Trades and Labor Council. With the support of the Labor Electoral League, he unsuccessfully stood for election to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1894 and 1895. During that period, he was the proprietor of the Daily Post newspaper, sympathetic to the labour movement, which ended in liquidation, with Holman and four other directors convicted of fraud. He spent nearly two months in jail before the conviction was quashed. He went on to become a journalist for the Grenfell Vedette, and later its proprietor. From 1896 to 1898, he worked as an organiser for the Australian Workers' Union.

In 1900, Holman began to study law part-time and, in 1903, he passed the University of London's intermediate examination, being admitted to the bar as a barrister of the Supreme Court of New South Wales on 31 July 1903. In 1909, he and P.A. Jacobs co-authored Australian Mercantile Law. In the 1920s, when he resumed his legal practice, he was made a King's Counsel. After a lectureship in Brisbane in 1928, The Australian constitution : its interpretation and amendment was published.