John Christian Watson, born in Chile on the 9th of April 1867 to Johan Christian Tuck and Martha Minchin, became the first leader of the Labor Party and the first Labor Prime Minister.
Watson went to primary school in New Zealand, but was withdrawn from his education at age 10 to work on the railways. Shortly after he began an apprenticeship with the North Otago Times.
Watson moved to Sydney, New South Wales, in 1886 where he followed his real passion and began to involve himself in political groups. By 1893, Watson had become the president of the Sydney Trades and Labor Council and the following year, the president of the Australian Labor Federation.
Between 1894 and 1901 John Watson was the labor candidate for young at the NSW legislative assembly. In his final year holding this seat, John Watson became the first leader of the Labor Party.
Following this, Watson left the state parliament and entered Federal Parliament. When the first federal election occurred on the 29th of March 1901, Watson was elected the labor candidate for the seat of Bland. Watson stayed in this position until finally on the 27th of April 1904 he became the Australian Prime Minister and Treasurer. He became the youngest Prime Minister.
Due to his governments decision to pass a law to give employment preference to unionists, Watson lasted 4 months in both positions.
In 1907, Watson resigned from Labor leadership due to poor health reasons. This led to his political retirement in 1910 at age 43. After his departure from parliament he became a successful director of a number of companies.
In 1916, he was expelled from a Labor Party for supporting Conscription. The labor party were anit-conscription. .