Rooty Hill School of Arts Building( still in use today)

Joseph Cook, Prime Minister of Australia 1913-1914 Photo NAA.

Mary Cook representing her husband at an event in Parramatta Photo NAA

Sir Joseph Cook by James Guthrie c. 1920

by John Horne

Since the Australian colonies federated in 1901 to form the Commonwealth of Australia, there have been forty-seven federal elections, with the next scheduled for 3 May 2025.

Today, four federal electorates— Chifley, Greenway, McMahon and Parramatta— overlap parts of the City of Blacktown. However, at the inception of the Australian Parliament in 1901, only the federal seat of Parramatta encompassed the Blacktown City area.

The electorate of Chifley, created in 1969, was named in honour of the Right Honourable Joseph Benedict Chifley( 1885 – 1951), who served as Prime Minister of Australia from 1945 to 1949.

Greenway, established in 1984, was named after Francis Greenway( 1777 – 1837), a former convict and renowned colonial architect.

McMahon, formed in 2010, was named in honour of the Right Honourable Sir William‘ Billy’ McMahon GCMG CH( 1908 – 1988), Prime Minister of Australia from 1971 to 1972. McMahon had a family connection to Blacktown: his grandfather, James‘ Butty’ McMahon, owned land in the Whalan area. It is likely that young Billy visited Whalan during his childhood.

Notably, his grandfather relocated a green corrugated iron shed from the Prospect Reservoir Construction Camp to St Bartholomew’ s Church grounds in the 1880s.

Parramatta was the first federal seat to include the modern Blacktown area and was named after the city it represents.

In 1901, Joseph Cook was elected to represent the people of Blacktown within the Parramatta electorate. He served from 20 March 1901 until 11 November 1921, and during that time, he became Prime Minister in 1913.

At that time, the federal seat of Parramatta spanned a vast area west of Auburn and Parramatta, reaching as far as Lithgow. It included Auburn, Parramatta, Blacktown, Liverpool, Fairfield, Prospect, Merrylands, Carlingford, Pennant Hills, Dural, the Hawkesbury, the Blue Mountains, the Capertee Valley, Hartley and Lithgow. Representing such a large electorate meant Cook often travelled by train, horse-drawn carriage, or motorcar, staying overnight in local inns.

He initially lived in Lithgow with his wife, schoolteacher Mary Cook( née Turner), both hailing from mining families in Silverdale, Staffordshire, England. Despite minimal formal education and beginning work in the coal mines at

age nine, Cook was a self-taught man. The family moved several times, living in Lithgow( 1895), Marrickville( 1901), Baulkham Hills( 1908) and Bellevue Hill( 1927), raising nine children.

In 1901, newspapers and public speaking were the only tools for political communication. Politicians engaged with communities in halls, churches, schools, mechanics’ institutes, and open-air events. Cook frequently attended key local functions, such as the laying of the foundation stone for the Rooty Hill School of Arts on 1 November 1902.

Politically, Cook was a founding member of the Labor Party but opposed socialism. A free trader, he initially served in the NSW Parliament representing Hartley in 1891. He held roles including Minister for Mines, Agriculture and Postmaster-General. When Labor introduced a pledge requiring MPs to always vote with the party, Cook— valuing conscience and individual rights— resigned.

After Federation, he contested and won the new seat of Parramatta. In federal politics, he supported aged pensions, industrial arbitration, electoral reform, and the establishment of the Australian Navy. As Defence Minister under Alfred Deakin, he hosted Lord Kitchener’ s 1909

visit, introduced compulsory military training, and helped establish the Royal Australian Navy and the Military College at Duntroon.

As Prime Minister in 1914, Cook led Australia into the First World War, offering an expeditionary force of 20,000 troops and handing over naval control to Britain. His government also authorised the occupation of German New Guinea.

Cook later served as Navy Minister under Billy Hughes( 1917 – 1920), Treasurer( 1920 – 1921), and attended the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, signing the Treaty of Versailles alongside Hughes.

Mary Cook often represented her husband at local events. After leaving Parliament in 1921, Cook was appointed High Commissioner to London( 1922 – 1927) and was a delegate to the League of Nations.

He passed away in 1947. His legacy lives on through a railway station in South Australia, the Canberra suburb of Cook( named for both Joseph and James Cook), and the federal seat of Cook near Botany Bay.

Joseph Cook was the first federal politician to represent Blacktown. It is unfortunate that no suburb in modern Blacktown bears his name, given his remarkable life and service to Australia.