Charles Hawker
Encyclopedia
Charles Allan Seymour Hawker (16 May 1894 – 25 October 1938) was an Australian politician.

Hawker was born near Clare, South Australia
Clare, South Australia
The town of Clare is located in South Australia in the Mid North region, 136 km north of Adelaide. It gives its name to the Clare Valley wine and tourist region.-History:One of the first settlers in the area was John Horrocks, in 1839...

 and educated at Geelong Grammar School
Geelong Grammar School
Geelong Grammar School is an independent, Anglican, co-educational, boarding and day school. The school's main campus is located at Corio, on the northern outskirts of Geelong, Victoria, Australia, overlooking Corio Bay and Limeburners Bay....

, Hawker and Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

, earning Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in 1919 and 1922 respectively. While at Cambridge he enlisted in the British Army to serve in World War I. Fighting in the Battle of Passchendaele, Hawker was injured and left severely handicapped.

Hawker returned to Australia in 1920 and in 1929 was elected as a member of the Australian House of Representatives
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....

, representing the electorate of Wakefield
Division of Wakefield
The Division of Wakefield is an Australian Electoral Division in the state of South Australia. It is located north of Adelaide, incorporating the outer northern suburbs of Salisbury and Elizabeth, and extending north as far as Clare. It covers the east coast of the Gulf St Vincent north of...

 for the United Australia Party
United Australia Party
The United Australia Party was an Australian political party that was founded in 1931 and dissolved in 1945. It was the political successor to the Nationalist Party of Australia and predecessor to the Liberal Party of Australia...

. He was appointed Minister for Markets and Minister for Repatriation in first ministry
First Lyons Ministry
The First Lyons Ministry was the twenty-first Australian Commonwealth ministry, and ran from 6 January 1932 to 12 October 1934.United Australia Party*Rt Hon Joseph Lyons, MP: Prime Minister, Treasurer...

 of Prime Minister Joseph Lyons
Joseph Lyons
Joseph Aloysius Lyons, CH was an Australian politician. He was Labor Premier of Tasmania from 1923 to 1928 and a Minister in the James Scullin government from 1929 until his resignation from the Labor Party in March 1931...

 and was the youngest member of the ministry. On 12 April 1932 he was replaced as Minister for Repatriation by Charles Marr and the Markets portfolio was renamed Commerce. On 23 September 1932, he resigned from the ministry in protest at its refusal to reduce parliamentary salaries in response to the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 and did not serve as a minister again.

Hawker died in a plane crash
1938 Kyeema Crash
The Kyeema airline crash took place on the 25 October 1938 when the Australian National Airways Douglas DC-2 Kyeema, tail number VH-UYC, flying from Adelaide to Melbourne, Australia, commenced final approach to Essendon Airport through heavy fog and crashed into the western slopes of Mount...

 near Mount Dandenong, Victoria
Mount Dandenong, Victoria
Mount Dandenong is both a mountain and small township/suburb of Greater Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 35 km east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Yarra Ranges...

 in 1938. The Australian Electoral Division of Hawker
Division of Hawker
The Division of Hawker was an Australian Electoral Division in South Australia. The division was created in 1969 and abolished in 1993. It was named for Charles Hawker, who was a federal MP 1929-38. It was located in the southern suburbs of Adelaide and took in the suburbs of Ascot Park,...

 and the Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...

 suburb of Hawker, Australian Capital Territory
Hawker, Australian Capital Territory
Hawker Hawker Hawker (postcode: 2614, is a suburb of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia. Hawker is in the district of Belconnen.The suburb of Hawker is named after Charles Hawker (1894–1938), Member of the House of Representatives from 1929–1938 and Federal minister in 1932...

 are named in his honour, and the Charles Allan Seymour Hawker Scholarship was established by his sister Kathleen Lilias Needham in 1991 to fund Australian university education. His relative David Hawker
David Hawker
David Peter Maxwell Hawker , Australian politician, was a Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives from May 1983 to July 2010, representing the Division of Wannon, Victoria, previously represented by former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. He was born in Adelaide, and was educated at...

 is a former Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives
Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives
The Speaker of the House of Representatives is the presiding officer of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the Parliament of Australia. The presiding officer in the upper house is the President of the Senate....

.
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