James Whiteside McCay
Sir James Whiteside McCay, , who often spelt his surname M'Cay, was an Australian general and politician.
A graduate of the University of Melbourne, where he earned Master of Arts and Master of Laws degrees, McCay established a successful legal practice, McCay & Thwaites. He was a member of the Victorian Parliament for Castlemaine from 1895 to 1899, where he was a champion of women's suffrage and federation. He lost his seat in 1899 but became a member of the first Australian Federal Parliament in 1901. He was Minister for Defence from 1904 to 1905, during which he implemented long-lasting reforms, including the creation of the Military Board.
As a soldier, McCay commanded the 2nd Infantry Brigade in the landing at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915, during the Gallipoli Campaign of the Great War. He was later wounded in the Second Battle of Krithia and invalided to Australia, but returned to command the 5th Division, which he led in the Battle of Fromelles in 1916, dubbed "the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history." His failures in difficult military operations made him a controversial figure who earned the disfavour of his superiors, while his efforts to succeed in the face of insurmountable obstacles earned him the odium of troops under his command, who blamed him for high casualties. In the latter part of the war he commanded the AIF Depots in the United Kingdom.
After the war, McCay resumed his old job as Deputy Chairman of the State Bank of Victoria and also served on a panel that deliberated on the future structure of the Army. He was chairman of the Fair Profits Commission, the War Service Homes Scheme of the Repatriation Commission, and the Repatriation Commission's Disposals Board. He commanded the Special Constabulary Force during the 1923 Victorian Police strike.
Education and early life
McCay was born on 21 December 1864 in Ballynure, County Antrim, Ireland, the oldest of ten children to the Reverend Andrew Ross Boyd McCay, a Presbyterian minister, and his wife Lily Ann Esther Waring. The family emigrated to Australia in 1865, settling in Castlemaine, Victoria. Boyd McCay continued his theological studies while he was a minister in Castlemaine, earning a Master of Arts from the University of Melbourne in 1882 and a Doctor of Divinity from the Presbyterian Theological Faculty Ireland in 1887. Esther could speak seven languages. The two separated in 1891.James attended Castlemaine State School. At the age of twelve he won a scholarship to Scotch College, Melbourne to the value of £35 per annum for six years. He was dux of the school in 1880. At Scotch College McCay first met John Monash, who would be dux the following year, and would later become a close friend. McCay entered Ormond College at the University of Melbourne in 1881, the year that the college first opened, and commenced studying for his Bachelor of Arts degree. McCay left the university without completing his degree in 1883 and took a job as a teacher at Toorak Grammar School. In 1885, he bought Castlemaine Grammar School. The school was co-educational; McCay believed that girls should have the same opportunities as boys. Among its students who attended university with McCay's encouragement and support was Sussanah Jane Williams, who later became principal of Janet Clarke Hall at the University of Melbourne, and The Women's College at the University of Sydney. The job of running the school was soon delegated to McCay's mother and brother Adam.
He returned to the university in 1892 and completed his Bachelor of Arts degree. He then embarked on a Bachelor of Laws degree. In 1895, he was awarded an MA degree, majoring in mathematics. He completed his law degree the next year, with first class honours, in spite of rarely attending the lectures due to his work, political and military commitments. In 1895, he was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria and established a legal practice in Castlemaine. His practice had the first telephone in the town. He was awarded his Master of Laws degree in 1897. In 1898, he went into partnership with William Thwaites, whose brother Walter married his sister. The firm's name was then changed to McCay & Thwaites. It would later hire one of the first women to become an articled clerk in Victoria. On 8 April 1896, McCay married Julia Mary O'Meara, the daughter of a Roman Catholic Kyneton police magistrate. Sectarianism in Australia made such marriages uncommon, and the marriage was opposed by both their families. It produced two daughters, Margaret Mary and Beatrix Waring, born in 1897 and 1901, respectively.
Political career
Victorian parliament
In August 1890, McCay was elected to the local council of the Castlemaine Borough. When the prominent local Member of the Legislative Assembly, Sir James Patterson, died in 1894, McCay ran for his seat of Castlemaine in the resulting by-election. After a hard-fought campaign, McCay won by just ten votes. McCay devoted his maiden speech to what would be his defining cause as a state politician, women's suffrage:On other issues, McCay supported Federation, and was one of a number of young politicians who rallied around Alfred Deakin, threatening to bring down Sir George Turner's government if it attempted to block federation. McCay opposed sending Victorian troops to fight in the Boer War, calling war in general an "anachronism". In 1899, McCay was one of the young radicals who supported Allan McLean and crossed the floor to bring down the Turner government. McLean gave McCay the portfolio of Minister for Education and Customs in his new ministry. At the time it was the custom for members who had accepted a ministerial appointment to re-submit themselves for election. In the subsequent by-election, McCay's opposition to the war in South Africa became an election issue. The war was now going badly for Britain. Feelings ran high and McCay lost his seat. McCay attempted to win his seat back at the general election in 1900 but lost again.
Federal parliament
With Federation in 1901 came the opportunity to run for the new Parliament of Australia. McCay contested the 1901 election as a Protectionist Party candidate for Corinella, the Federal electorate that encompassed the Castlemaine area. McCay, who characterised himself as a liberal, supported the widest possible enfranchisement of women, the protection of industry and revenue through tariffs, and the White Australia policy. The war in South Africa was now in its final stages and the electorate forgot or forgave McCay's "treason", electing him to the first Australian Parliament.File:Military Board 1904.jpg|thumb|left|300px|alt=Formal group portrait of nine men, four sitting at the front and five standing behind. Three are wearing suits; the others are wearing formal double breasted military uniforms with sashes. |Group portrait of Commonwealth Headquarters Staff. Identified left to right, back row: Captain P. N. Buckley; Mr S. Petherbridge; Surgeon General W. D. C. Williams; Mr F. Savage. Front row: Colonel H. Le Mesurie; Colonel J. C. Hoad; Lieutenant Colonel J. W. McCay; Colonel W. T. Bridges, Mr J. A. Thompson.
As a backbencher, McCay opposed amendments to the Defence Act 1903 proposed by Billy Hughes of the Australian Labor Party that called for peacetime conscription. He accepted its necessity in wartime, but only for service within Australia. McCay believed that volunteers would always be plentiful, and he feared that peacetime conscription would result in militarism. He was re-elected unopposed in the 1903 election, the first in which Victorian women were eligible to vote. In 1904, McCay moved an amendment to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904 to remove the clause that empowered the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration to give preference to trade unions. The debate became unexpectedly heated and resulted in the fall of Chris Watson's Labor government. The Free Trade Party's George Reid became Prime Minister and offered McCay the post of Minister for Defence.
McCay became the sixth Minister for Defence in four years. His predecessor, Senator Anderson Dawson, had chaired a committee that had produced a detailed report recommending the abolition of the post of General Officer Commanding Australian Military Forces and the creation of a Council of Defence, a Naval Board and a Military Board. It fell to McCay to implement the report's recommendations and create a five-man Military Board consisting of himself, a finance member and three military officers. McCay preferred the senior member not be styled the Chief of the General Staff. This change would not be made until 1909. At the first meeting of the Council of Defence, McCay rejected the arguments of Captain William Rooke Creswell for the majority of the defence budget to be spent on supporting the British fleet. In 1905 the Reid government collapsed and McCay became a backbencher once more. Since the Federal parliament sat in Parliament House, Melbourne, McCay lived at the Stock Exchange Club in Collins Street, Melbourne while his family remained in Castlemaine. He maintained a liaison with a married woman, Ella Gavan Duffy.
In the 1906 redistribution, McCay's electorate of Corinella was abolished and its territory divided between the electorates of Laanecoorie and Corio. McCay decided to run in Corio against the sitting member, Richard Crouch, although he was also a Protectionist, but Crouch won convincingly. In 1910, the Commonwealth Liberal Party Senate candidate, Thomas Skene, died suddenly two days before the nomination date for the 1910 election. McCay submitted himself as candidate but lost.