Digby Frank Denham was born in Langport on 25 January 1859 to Edna and William Denham. This son of a Somerset baker became, over half a century later, the Premier of the Australian State of Queensland. Quite a journey.
Digby went to Langport Grammar School, then, in July 1873, he was apprenticed to the local drapery firm, Francis Meade & Co. There, according to one later Queensland newspaper profile, “he received the rudiments of those business-like habits which have ever since characterised his career”. He was active in the local community, especially in the Langport Total Abstainers Society. In 1878, for example, he gave a lecture “of an interesting and instructive kind” on ‘Total Abstention’, and a “humorous reading” on ‘Pickwick and Cold Punch’.
In 1881, he emigrated to South Australia, where he went into business in partnership with another Langport emigrant, George Cable Knight. Three years later he married Knight’s sister, Alice, also of Langport, in North Adelaide. After his business partnership was dissolved in 1885, he moved to Sydney, joining a company where his brother Edward, who had emigrated from Langport in 1876, worked. The following year he opened a branch of that business in Brisbane, where he then remained. By 1890, the brothers had bought out the firm, renaming it Denham Brothers. Digby’s business interests mushroomed, and he became very influential in Brisbane’s commercial life.
He entered the Queensland Legislative Assembly in 1902 as member for Oxley, Brisbane. In a fluid decade in Queensland politics, Denham held ministerial posts in various administrations including home affairs, agriculture and railways, and grew increasingly influential.
Eventually, in February 1911, when the incumbent Premier resigned, Denham assumed the premiership. This elevation was noted back in his home county, where both the Langport Herald and the Western Gazette proudly trumpeted his success: “Mr Digby Frank Denham, son of the late Wm Denham, baker, of Langport … is now Prime Minister of Queensland…. [This] is most gratifying to the inhabitants of Langport, who tender their warmest congratulations to their old townsman.”
He was Premier for four turbulent years, during which he had to deal with a number of crises. In 1912 a general strike grew so serious he even considered using the assistance of troops from a German warship then off the Queensland coast.
During an official tour of the UK in early 1914, while still Premier, Denham returned to his native town, where, accompanied by his wife, he visited his old school, Langport Grammar, on 9 April. He made a stirring speech, noting that, since his days there, ”the town had rather gone back, but the school had very markedly improved.” He reminded the pupils that they came from a “glorious old county” which produced many fine citizens including ”probably one of the best economists of modern days, Walter Bagehot, actually a Langport man.”
His Liberal Party was defeated in the May 1915 general election, and he lost his own seat. That ended Denham’s political career, and he devoted the rest of his life to his business interests. He had already turned down a knighthood in 1913.
He died on 10 May 1944 at his home in Annerley, Queensland, and was buried in Brisbane. The graves of his parents, Edna and William, can still be seen in Langport’s Cemetery.
© JB Seatrobe (Barry K Winetrobe & Janet Seaton) 2018. A version of this article was published originally in the May 2016 issue of the Somerset Leveller, #13.