Frank Troy
{{Short description|Australian politician}}
{{Redirect|Michael Francis Troy|the American swimmer|Mike Troy}}
{{For|the fictional character, Sergeant Frank Troy|Far from the Madding Crowd}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
{{Use Australian English|date=August 2021}}
{{Infobox Officeholder
|honorific-prefix = The Honourable
|name = Frank Troy
|honorific-suffix =
|image =
|image_size =
|office = Speaker of the Legislative Assembly
of Western Australia
|term_start = 1 November 1911
|term_end = 13 February 1917
|predecessor = Timothy Quinlan
|successor = Bertie Johnston
|office2 = Member of the Legislative Assembly
of Western Australia
|constituency2 = Mount Magnet
|term_start2 = 24 June 1904
|term_end2 = 18 March 1939
|predecessor2 = Frank Wallace
|successor2 = Lucien Triat
|birth_date = {{birth date|1877|10|13|df=y}}
|birth_place = Pimlico, New South Wales, Australia
|death_date = {{death date and age|1953|1|7|1877|10|13|df=y}}
|death_place = Mount Lawley, Western Australia
|party = Labor
}}
Michael Francis "Frank" Troy (13 October 1877 – 7 January 1953) was an Australian politician who served in the Legislative Assembly of Western Australia from 1904 to 1939. A member of the Labor Party, he was the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly from 1911 to 1917, the first from that party to hold the position. Later in his career, Troy spent long periods as a frontbencher, serving as a minister in the first and second Collier governments, and then in the Willcock government (where he was deputy premier). After leaving parliament, he served as Agent-General for Western Australia from 1939 to 1947.
Early life and business career
Troy's parents were Ellen (née Maloney) and Patrick Troy, both Irish Catholic immigrants from County Tipperary. He was born at Pimlico, New South Wales, the locality on the Richmond River (near Ballina) where his father's farm was located.Black, David, and Bolton, Geoffrey (1990). [http://ncb.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/documents/Bio%20Register%20of%20WA%20MPs%20Vol.1%201870-1930.pdf Biographical Register of Members of the Parliament of Western Australia: Volume One (1870–1930)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170216153936/http://ncb.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/documents/Bio%20Register%20of%20WA%20MPs%20Vol.1%201870-1930.pdf |date=16 February 2017 }}, p. 195. Troy's father died when he was very young, and his mother subsequently moved her ten children to the nearby town of Wardell, where she ran a store.[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146267703 "MRS. ELLEN TROY."] – Catholic Freeman's Journal (Sydney), 17 November 1938. Initially training as a schoolteacher, Troy left the profession after only two years, and instead worked various jobs in the country. He arrived in Western Australia in 1897 with the intention of prospecting for gold in the colony's Murchison region. There, he became involved in the local trade union movement, serving in leadership roles with both the Australian Workers' Union (AWU) and the Amalgamated Workers' Association (AWA) at various stages. Troy quickly rose to become secretary of the Murchison district AWA branch, succeeding John Holman (who had entered parliament).[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article148325196 "STATE POLITICS."] – Westralian Worker, 24 August 1902.
Parliamentary career
=Early years and speakership=
At the 1904 state election, Troy contested the seat of Mount Magnet for the Labor Party. A resident of Cue at the time of his nomination, his only opponent was a mine manager from the Mount Magnet townsite, who was a Ministerialist (a supporter of the government of Walter James).[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article155854080 "MT MAGNET ELECTORATE."] – Mount Magnet Miner and Lennonville Leader, 4 June 1904. Aged only 26 at the election, Troy won with 61.26 percent of the vote, replacing Frank Wallace (who did not re-contest) in parliament.[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article25092319 "MR. M. F. TROY ELECTED"] – The West Australian, 2 July 1904. When parliament first met after the election, in August, he was appointed assistant secretary to Frederick Gill for the Labor Party, a position which broadly entailed the duties of a whip.[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article25095655 "THE POLITICAL SITUATION."] – The West Australian, 12 August 1904. Later in the year, in November, Troy was also elected to a one-year term as state general secretary of the AWA.[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article149607353 "GENERAL EXECUTIVE A.W.A.] – Westralian Worker, 11 November 1904.
Troy again faced only a single opponent at the early 1905 election, which had been pre-empted by the defeat of Henry Daglish's minority Labor government. Running against a supporter of Cornthwaite Rason's new government, he increased his majority from the previous year, finishing with 66.15% (although on a much lower turnout).[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article25526964 "COUNTRY AND GOLDFIELDS ELECTORATES."] – The West Australian, 30 October 1905. Following the election, Troy was made the Labor Party's chief whip, under the new Leader of the Opposition, Thomas Bath.[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article37807068 "THE NEW PARLIAMENT."] – The West Australian, 25 November 1905. He (and several other Labor MPs in Goldfields constituencies) went on to be re-elected unopposed at both the 1908 and 1911 elections.[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article155863592 "TO MR. M. F. TROY, M.L.A."] – Mount Magnet Miner and Lennonville Leader, 3 October 1908.[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article38835337 "THE NOMINATIONS."] – The Western Mail, 30 September 1911. Labor, now under the leadership of John Scaddan, won majority government for the first time in 1911, and put forward Troy as their candidate for speaker, who was elected unanimously.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article155865663 |title=Opening of Parliament. |newspaper=Wickepin Argus |volume=I |issue=50 |location=Wickepin |date=4 November 1911 |accessdate=15 May 2024 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}} The first speaker from the Labor Party,{{Efn|The position had been filled by an independent, Mathieson Jacoby, during the only preceding Labor government, that of Henry Daglish.}} Troy was only 34 when he assumed the speakership, making him, according to a later source, "the youngest member of any Australian parliament to hold that office".[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article49073237 "DEATH OF MR. M. F. TROY AFTER LONG ILLNESS"] – The West Australian, 8 January 1953.
Like almost all future Labor speakers, Troy shunned some of the regalia normally associated with the speakership, first not wearing the traditional wig, and then also dispensing with the gown.[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article26878108 "IN THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY."] – The West Australian, 27 June 1913. On at least one occasion, he also ceased use of the ceremonial mace, which was not received favourably.[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article26514990 "NEWS AND NOTES."] – The West Australian, 4 July 1912. Nonetheless, Troy was re-elected speaker unanimously after the 1914 election, with his conduct praised by the leaders of all three major parties – Labor's Scaddan, the Liberal Party's Frank Wilson, and the Country Party's James Gardiner.[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92565336 "MR. TROY ELECTED SPEAKER"] – Kalgoorlie Miner, 4 December 1914. At the election, he had been returned unopposed to his seat for a third consecutive time.[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article148345482 The Nominations.] – Westralian Worker, 16 October 1914. After the defeat of the Labor government in July 1916, with Frank Wilson becoming premier for a second time, Troy initially continued on as speaker. However, he stepped down from the post in February 1917, in what he described as "purely a voluntary step",[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article37983143 "LATE SPEAKER INTERVIEWED."] – The Western Mail, 16 February 1917. and was replaced by the Country Party's Edward Johnston.[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article156961349 "MR E. B. JOHNSTON ELECTED SPEAKER."] – Great Southern Leader (Pingelly), 16 February 1917.
=Front bench=
{{expand section|date=June 2015}}
Later life and death
{{expand section|date=June 2015}}
Troy died in Mount Lawley, the Perth suburb in which he had long been resident, in January 1953, after a long illness. He had married Flora Brown Mackinnon in April 1913, when he was 35. It was the first marriage for both of them (she being several years older than him), and the couple never had children, with Flora Troy dying just over a year before her husband.
Notes
{{notelist}}
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
{{s-start}}
{{s-par|au-wa}}
{{s-bef|before=Frank Wallace}}
{{s-ttl|title=Member for Mount Magnet|years=1904–1939}}
{{s-aft|after=Lucien Triat}}
{{s-bef|before=Timothy Quinlan}}
{{s-ttl|title=Speaker of the Legislative Assembly|years=1911–1917}}
{{s-aft|after=Bertie Johnston}}
|-
{{s-off}}
{{s-bef|before=John Scaddan}}
{{s-ttl|title=Minister for Mines|years=1924–1927}}
{{s-aft|after=Selby Munsie}}
{{s-bef|before=Henry Maley}}
{{s-ttl|title=Minister for Agriculture|years=1924–1927}}
{{s-aft|after=Harold Millington}}
{{s-bef|before=William Angwin
Charles Latham}}
{{s-ttl|title=Minister for Lands|years=1927–1930
1933–1939}}
{{s-aft|after=Charles Latham
Frank Wise}}
{{s-bef|before=William Angwin
Charles Latham}}
{{s-ttl|title=Minister for Immigration|years=1927–1930
1933–1939}}
{{s-aft|after=Charles Latham
None (abolished)}}
{{s-end}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Troy, Frank}}
Category:Agents-General for Western Australia
Category:Australian gold prospectors
Category:Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Western Australia
Category:Australian people of Irish descent
Category:Burials at Karrakatta Cemetery
Category:Members of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly
Category:People from the Northern Rivers
Category:Speakers of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly