Jacob Stumm

Stumm was born in the Free City of Frankfurt, but was brought to his Australia by his parents at the age of 2 and raised in Toowoomba, Queensland, where he was educated at public schools. He moved to Gympie at the age of 15 and lived there for the rest of his life, with the exception of a few years at Maryborough. He worked as a Hansard reporter and worked as a journalist for The Gympie Times before purchasing the newspaper in partnership with A. G. Ramsey in 1880. Stumm subsequently took on the newspaper's editorship.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article20463031 |title=DEATH OF MR. JACOB STUMM. |newspaper=The Brisbane Courier |location=Queensland, Australia |date=25 January 1921 |access-date=22 December 2019 |page=8 |via=Trove }}{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article85414734 |title=THE CANDIDATES. |newspaper=The North Queensland Register |location=Queensland, Australia |date=1 April 1896 |access-date=22 December 2019 |page=40 |via=Trove }}{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article190566434 |title=MR. JACOB STUMM. |newspaper=The Week |location=Queensland, Australia |date=28 January 1921 |access-date=22 December 2019 |page=23 |via=Trove }} He was also a member of the Ambulance Brigade Committee, Fire Brigade Board and Gympie Turf Club Committee and the School of Arts and Technical College Committee. Stumm used his newspaper to campaign against the sitting member for Gympie, Andrew Fisher (who later became Labor's second Prime Minister of Australia), accusing Fisher of being a dangerous revolutionary and an anti-Catholic.{{Cite book| last=Day | first=D. | year=2008 | title=Andrew Fisher: prime minister of Australia | publisher=HarperCollinsPublishers | isbn=978-0-7322-7610-2}}{{cite web | url=https://www.gympie.qld.gov.au/documents/40005057/41423777/12.%20Jacob%20Stumm%20Plaque | title=Media Mogul of Yesteryear: Jacob John Stumm 1853-1921 | publisher=Gympie Regional Council | work=Gympie Region Heritage Trails | accessdate=22 December 2019}}

Stumm ran against Fisher for his Gympie seat as in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland at the 1896 colonial election, contesting as a Ministerialist, and won. However, he retired from parliament in 1899 after only one term, citing a need to attend to his business interests and his frustration with "the growing tendency to make the Legislative Assembly a mere House of Talk".{{cite web|title=Former Members|publisher=Parliament of Queensland|year=2015| url=http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/members/former/bio?id=532763084|accessdate= 7 February 2015}}{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article171513286 |title=To the Electors of Gympie. |newspaper=Gympie Times And Mary River Mining Gazette |location=Queensland, Australia |date=3 January 1899 |access-date=22 December 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove }}{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article79288763 |title=LOCAL AND GENERAL. |newspaper=The North Queensland Register |location=Queensland, Australia |date=22 January 1896 |access-date=22 December 2019 |page=41 |via=Trove }}

Stumm returned to his business interests after his retirement from state politics. He was involved in the formation of the Wide Bay Dairy Co-Operative Ltd in 1906 and served on its board of directors, later serving several years as chairman.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article19459750 |title=LISMORE AND DISTRICT. |newspaper=The Brisbane Courier |location=Queensland, Australia |date=17 July 1906 |access-date=22 December 2019 |page=2 |via=Trove }}{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article239722356 |title=MR. JACOB STUMM DEAD. |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=26 January 1921 |access-date=22 December 2019 |page=8 |via=Trove }} He also had significant interests in mining investments. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Wide Bay at the 1910 federal election.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article188289797 |title=Wide Bay. |newspaper=Gympie Times And Mary River Mining Gazette |location=Queensland, Australia |date=19 February 1910 |access-date=22 December 2019 |page=3 |via=Trove }}{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article213064642 |title=DEATH OF MR. JACOB STUMM. |newspaper=The Daily Mail |location=Queensland, Australia |date=25 January 1921 |access-date=22 December 2019 |page=7 |via=Trove }}

In 1913, he was elected to the Australian House of Representatives as the Commonwealth Liberal Party member for the new seat of Lilley and was re-elected in 1914. Stumm encountered substantial prejudice during World War I as a consequence of his German birth, and he spoke out publicly in 1917 about the "humiliating treatment" he had received.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article187079551 |title=VICTIMS OF HATE. |newspaper=Daily Standard |location=Queensland, Australia |date=12 January 1917 |access-date=22 December 2019 |page=4 (SECOND EDITION) |via=Trove }}{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article81861146 |title=Of German Descent. |newspaper=Chronicle And North Coast Advertiser |location=Queensland, Australia |date=19 January 1917 |access-date=22 December 2019 |page=5 |via=Trove }} He subsequently retired from parliament at the 1917 election, having had to be talked out of resigning and causing a by-election earlier that year.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article188392625 |title=Political Points |newspaper=Gympie Times And Mary River Mining Gazette |location=Queensland, Australia |date=24 March 1917 |access-date=22 December 2019 |page=5 |via=Trove }}{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article214361656 |title=LILLEY ELECTORATE. |newspaper=The Daily Mail |location=Queensland, Australia |date=23 February 1917 |access-date=22 December 2019 |page=6 |via=Trove }}

After his retirement he again returned to The Gympie Times, which he had continued to own throughout, though he had ceded the editorship to his brother, A. L. Stumm. Stumm died in 1921 in the Gympie Hospital after suffering a brain hemorrhage in The Gympie Times' office the previous day. He was buried in Gympie Cemetery.[http://gctrust.dnsalias.com:8008/mapguide/Gympie/Public/ Welcome to the Gympie Cemetery Mapping Portal] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140315053428/http://gctrust.dnsalias.com:8008/mapguide/Gympie/Public/ |date=15 March 2014 }} – Gympie Cemetery Trust. Retrieved 7 February 2015.

He married Margaret Pride in 1878, and they had five sons and four daughters. His daughter Annie married future general and senator William Glasgow in 1904.{{Australian Dictionary of Biography|last=Harry |first=Ralph |authorlink= |year=1983|id=A090021b |title= Glasgow, Sir Thomas William (1876–1955)|accessdate=2007-12-09}}{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article182597111 |title=OBITUARY MRS. JACOB STUMM |newspaper=The Week |location=Queensland, Australia |date=19 June 1925 |access-date=22 December 2019 |page=24 |via=Trove }}

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{{succession box | title=Member for Lilley | before=New seat| after=George Mackay| years=1913–1917}}

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{{s-bef|before= Andrew Fisher}}

{{s-ttl |title= Member for Gympie|years=1896–1899|alongside=William Smyth}}

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Category:1853 births

Category:1921 deaths

Category:Commonwealth Liberal Party members of the Parliament of Australia

Category:Nationalist Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Australia

Category:Colony of Queensland people

Category:Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Lilley

Category:Members of the Australian House of Representatives

Category:Members of the Queensland Legislative Assembly

Category:People from Gympie

Category:People from Toowoomba

Category:People from the Free City of Frankfurt

Category:Immigrants to colonial Australia

Category:Australian MPs 1913–1914

Category:Australian MPs 1914–1917