William Lawrence Baillieu (22 April 1859 – 6 February 1936) was an
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
n financier and politician. He was a successful businessman, having developed significant business interests from his relatively humble beginnings. He associated with many of the most influential people of his era, and served in the
Victorian Legislative CouncilThe Legislative Council, or upper house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of Victoria, Australia. The other is the Legislative Assembly. Both sit in Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. It serves as a house of review, in a similar fashion to its federal counterpart, the...
for 21 years, including stints as Minister for Works and Health and leader of the Legislative Council.
William Lawrence Baillieu (22 April 1859 – 6 February 1936) was an
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
n financier and politician. He was a successful businessman, having developed significant business interests from his relatively humble beginnings. He associated with many of the most influential people of his era, and served in the
Victorian Legislative CouncilThe Legislative Council, or upper house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of Victoria, Australia. The other is the Legislative Assembly. Both sit in Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. It serves as a house of review, in a similar fashion to its federal counterpart, the...
for 21 years, including stints as Minister for Works and Health and leader of the Legislative Council. As such, he began the
Baillieu familyBaillieu may refer to:* Chris Baillieu, rower* Clive Latham Baillieu, 1st Baron Baillieu , businessman and public servant* Kate Baillieu , an Australian heiress-activist* Marshall Baillieu , politician...
dynasty, several members of which remain prominent figures in public life today.
Biography
Baillieu was born in
QueenscliffQueenscliff is a small town on the Bellarine Peninsula at the entrance to Port Phillip in southern Victoria, Australia and is bounded on its north side by the environmentally important Swan Bay. It is part of the Borough of Queenscliffe, which also includes the neighbouring town of Point Lonsdale....
in 1859 the second son of James George Baillieu and his wife Emma Lawrence, née Pow, relatively recent immigrants. He was educated at the local state school. He began working as an office boy in the Bank of Victoria at the age of fifteen, and remained with the bank for eleven years. In 1885, he went into partnership with J.D. Munro as auctioneers and estate agents. Two years later, he married Bertha Latham, with whom he would later have three sons and four daughters. The partnership with Munro broke up in 1892 and Baillieu founded his own business as an auctioneer, land agent and finance broker. He made and lost a fortune in the Victorian land boom of the 1890s, but was able to avoid bankruptcy due to a little-known loophole in the insolvency law of the time which was exploited by his solicitor, Theodor Fink. As a result of the loophole, Baillieu was able to clear his debts by paying only a tiny fraction of the sum owed, and was able to escape the stigma of bankruptcy. Despite this hitch, he had developed a reputation as an able and competent financier, and became a director of the Herald and Weekly Times around the turn of the century.
In 1901, Baillieu entered politics, standing for and being elected to the
Victorian Legislative CouncilThe Legislative Council, or upper house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of Victoria, Australia. The other is the Legislative Assembly. Both sit in Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. It serves as a house of review, in a similar fashion to its federal counterpart, the...
as the member for Northern Province. He was a backbencher for several years, but was promoted to the ministry with the ascension of
John MurrayJohn Murray , Australian politician, was the 23rd Premier of Victoria.Murray was born near Koroit, Victoria, the son of Scottish immigrants. When he was a child his parents settled on a farm near Warrnambool in the Western District of Victoria. Murray visited Scotland when around 20 years of age,...
as premier, serving as Minister of Public Works and Health. He also served as leader of the Legislative Council until 1917. Baillieu served as an honorary minister in the Murray,
WattWilliam Alexander Watt PC was an Australian politician who was the 24th Premier of Victoria, and later a leading federal politician and Speaker....
and
PeacockSir Alexander James Peacock, KCMG , Australian politician, was the 20th Premier of Victoria.Peacock was born of Scottish descent at Creswick, the first Victorian Premier born after the gold rush of the 1850s and the attainment of self-government in Victoria. He was distantly related to the family...
governments before retiring from politics altogether in 1922.
Towards the end of his political career, Baillieu began to take advantage of the need for
leadLead is a main-group element with symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal, also considered to be one of the heavy metals. Lead has a bluish-white color when freshly cut, but tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed to air...
and
zincZinc , also known as spelter, is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...
that had been made clear as a result of
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
. Following up on his involvement in the 1905 founding of
Zinc Corporation Ltd.Consolidated Zinc was an Australian mining company from 1905 to 1962. The company's initial operations focused on extracting zinc from mine tailings of the Broken Hill Ore Deposit at Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia...
at the
Broken Hill Ore DepositThe Broken Hill Ore Deposit is located underneath Broken Hill in western New South Wales, Australia, and is the namesake for the town. It is arguably the world's richest and largest zinc-lead ore deposit...
in New South Wales, Baillieu worked with W.S. Robinson and Sir Colin Fraser to reorganise the Broken Hill Associated Smelters at
Port PiriePort Pirie is the sixth most populous city in South Australia after Adelaide, Mount Gambier, Whyalla, Murray Bridge and Port Augusta. It is a seaport located on the east coast of the Spencer Gulf, 224 kilometres north of Adelaide....
and brought about the formation and development of the Electrolytic Zinc Company in
RisdonRisdon is a suburb of Hobart, capital city of Tasmania, Australia. It is west of Risdon Vale. Eucalyptus risdonii is native to this location, and is the emblem of Geilston Bay High School....
,
TasmaniaTasmania is an Australian island and state. It is located south of the eastern side of the continent, from which it is separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania – the 26th largest island in the world – and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 500,000 ,...
. As a result of this work, he was awarded (jointly with Robinson) the gold medal of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy. At the time of his retirement in 1930, Baillieu was a director of the Herald and Weekly Times Limited, the Electrolytic Zinc Company of Australia, the Dunlop Rubber Company and Carlton and United Breweries. He was also involved with the prestigious Victoria Golf Club, which he had founded and served as president of for several years.
Baillieu died in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
on 6 February 1936. His own estate at his death was sworn at only sixty thousand pounds (Australian) although he was reputed to be a millionaire. However, he had made substantial contributions to charity; among other things, he founded the Anzac Hostel in
BrightonBrighton is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 12 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Bayside. At the 2006 Census, Brighton had a population of 20,651.-History:...
as a home for permanently disabled ex-soldiers. His descendants have become part of one of Melbourne's wealthiest and most prominent families.