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The larger-than-life personality of King O’Malley: Canberra Exhibition



The life and politics of King O’Malley is on exhibition from October 29, 2011 to March 4, 2012 at the Canberra Museum and Gallery in the city centre of Canberra, Australia.

King O’Malley, of Irish heritage, born either in Canada or America (he stated both) on either July 2 or July 4 (he stated both), in 1858 or 1854 (he stated both) was a larger-than-life legend in Australian politics. Even his name is suspect. According to O’Malley himself, his parents were William and Mary (nee King) O’Malley. Neither the date, first name, nor the place of his birth is known with certainty, although he certainly died on December 20, 1953.

Working as an insurance salesman, traveling around America, he moved to Australia when he was given a medical death sentence – a doctor diagnosed tuberculosis in 1888 and gave him six more months of life. In Australia, a Coowonga man cared for him until he recovered. In good health, O'Malley decided to walk the 2,100 kilometres from Emu Park in Queensland to Adelaide in South Australia where he resumed his insurance career while also preaching Christianity.

He was elected as a radical democrat in South Australia in 1896 – as a Christian socialist aiming to rid hotels of barmaids "hired for their physical attributes rather than their prowess in drawing ale." Women were much taken by his appearance. In 1899 he moved to Tasmania and was elected at the 1901 federal election and although being a prominent and colourful member of the Parliament, his radical ideas were not widely accepted.

O'Malley became Minister for Home Affairs when he moved to Melbourne and promoted Canberra as the site of the future capital of Australia. He declared American architect Walter Burley Griffen winner of the competition to draft a plan for the new capital. On February 20, 1913, O'Malley drove in the first peg which marked the start of the development of the city.

He lived to be about 95, and at the time of his death he was the last surviving member of the first Australian Parliament. Although he advocated for prohibition (a ban on alcohol) a pub in Canberra, King O’Malley’s Irish Pub in Civic, was named after him in 2000.

His famous quote is “Battle hard, never give up a good cause, never drink stagger juice [alcohol], smoke, or lose your sense of humour.” (1952)

The life and politics of King O’Malley is on exhibition from October 29, 2011 to March 4, 2012 at the Canberra Museum and Gallery in the city centre of Canberra, Australia.







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MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author  of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce  (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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