Former
Speakers

Sir John Bowser
1856-1936
Speaker: 1924-1927
Legislative Assembly: 1894-1929

John Bowser was born in London and taken by his parents to Melbourne at the age of three. The family settled at Bacchus Marsh, where he attended school and later worked on the Bacchus Marsh Express. As a young man Bowser spent some time in Scotland working as a journalist; on his return to Victoria in about 1880 he settled at Wangaratta and, in 1884, became Editor and part-owner of the Wangaratta Chronicle.

In 1894, now deeply involved in the Wangaratta community, Bowser won the Wangaratta and Rutherglen seat in the Legislative Assembly. He was an advocate of economy in government, and became associated with the Kyabram movement and with rural groups demanding economical government and balanced budgets. In 1908-09 he was briefly Minister of Public Instruction in the Bent Ministry. In 1914 he married Frances Rogers.

In 1916 Bowser founded the Economy Party, which in 1917 forced three supplementary budget statements reducing expenditure and then, campaigning as 'Liberals', defeated the Peacock government. Bowser then became Premier, Chief Secretary and Minister of Labour in a ministry which, with the support of the Victorian Farmers' Union, held office between November 1917 and March 1918. It was defeated by a combination of the Labor Party and the Nationalists, and the Economy Party and the Nationalists then formed a coalition in which Bowser was Chief Secretary and Minister of Public Health until he resigned in 1919.

In 1920 Bowser joined the Victorian Farmers' Union and in 1924 was elected Speaker with combined votes of the V.F.U. and the Labor Party. He was knighted in 1927, and when his term as Speaker ended later that year he did not seek re-election. He retired from politics in 1929, and died at Wangaratta in 1936. His wife had died in 1934.