Littleton Groom

Groom c. 1910

Groom was Minister of Home Affairs from July 1905 to October 1906 in the second Deakin Ministry and introduced legislation in 1906 to create a federal meteorological department and the creation of the Commonwealth Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIRO) in 1916 was in large part a product of his attempt to create an Australian Department of Agriculture in 1906. In October 1906, Groom became Attorney General until the defeat of the Deakin government in November 1908. Groom passed legislation to defend the Harvester Judgment and successfully introduced legislation providing Commonwealth invalid and old age pensions.[3][1]

With the formation of the Fusion government in June 1909, Groom became Minister for External Affairs until the Fusion's defeat in the 1910 election.

He had carried legislation establishing the High Commission of Australia in London. After the 1910 election, he became a strong opponent of Labor and attacked its establishment of a government-owned Commonwealth Bank and its attempt to gain the power to control monopolies. He was Trade and Customs in the Cook Ministry from June 1913 to September 1914.[1]

Groom was Vice-President of the Executive Council in Hughes's Nationalist government from November 1917 to March 1918 and Works and Railways from March 1918 to December 1921. He encouraged railway development and was involved in accelerating the construction of Canberra.

In December 1921 he became Attorney-General again. He was Minister for Trade and Customs and Minister for Health in May and June 1924, following Austin Chapman's resignation on grounds of ill health. Groom led the 1924 Australian delegation to the Fifth Assembly of the League of Nations in Geneva and chaired a committee, which formulated a protocol to establish a system of international arbitration and later voted to support its protocol despite an instruction to abstain. Groom involved himself in attempts to deport "foreign" agitators, but due to his poor handling of these and other matters, he was obliged to resign in December 1925.[3][1]

Groom as Speaker of the House in 1928

In return for his resignation, Groom was elected as Speaker of the House of Representatives and presided from January 1926 to 1929, when he helped oversee the move of federal Parliament from Melbourne to the newly constructed capital Canberra.

His refusal to use his tiebreaking vote as speaker on a bill that would remove the Commonwealth from most of its involvement in conciliation and arbitration led to the collapse of the Bruce government, triggering the 1929 election. His action was motivated partly by his views on the obligations of an independent speaker, but he also disliked the bill, and he still resented his forced resignation in 1925.

The Nationalists expelled Groom from the party, forcing him to run for reelection as an independent. In a bitter campaign, Groom was eliminated on the first count, making him the first serving Speaker to lose his own seat at an election.[1][4]

Groom returned to his legal practice in Brisbane for two years. In 1931 election, he sought to take back his old seat. Running again as an independent, he handily defeated his successor, Arthur Morgan. In a reversal of two years earlier, he won an outright majority on the first count. After two years as an independent, he joined the United Australia Party, successor to the Nationalists, in August 1933. From 1932 to 1936 he was chairman of the Bankruptcy Legislation Committee and in earlier years he also acted on various royal commissions and select committees. He died in Canberra of cerebro-vascular disease. Groom was survived by his wife and one of their two daughters.[3][1]