From Australia’s Jewish Past: Vaiben Louis Solomon
Vaiben was born on 13 May 1853 in Adelaide, the son of Judah Moss Solomon – nephew of Emanuel and Vaiben – and mother Rachel.
Vaiiben Louis Solomon
He was educated at the Adelaide Educational Institution and Scotch College Melbourne. He joined the Adelaide merchants – Donaldson, Andrews & Sharland – and was their agent in Kapunda (near the Barossa Valley) before working at the Adelaide Stock Exchange. In 1873 he joined a prospecting party, largely funded by the Adelaide Jewish Community, in the rush to the Northern Territory goldfields.
He returned to Adelaide to find his engagement to a non-Jew so opposed by his father that he set off to the Northern Territory in August 1874, having also failed to secure a position as a goldfield warden. He managed the Palmerston (Northern Territory) business for his elder brother Moss until January 1877 when he opened his own store and agency as an auctioneer and as a shipping, mining estate and general commission agent.
Vaiben was a powerfully-built man with a heavy dark beard. He was an adynamic, prominent and popular citizen of Palmerston He had a nickname, ‘Black Solomon’, derived from the occasion when—for a dare—he blackened himself to resemble an Aborigine and walked naked through the town. He was one of the few Jews to live and work in the Territory at the time.
Vaiben was known as ‘Mr Everything’ because there were few pursuits to which he would not turn his hand. These included investing in mining and, in 1884, promoted the North Australian Pearl Fishing Co, where he was the manager and secretary. Unfortunately, these investments did not prove to be successful and he lost heavily on both ventures. He was virtually insolvent by 1888 and was able to prevent bankruptcy by taking on a partner. From mid-1885 until mid-1890 Vaiben owned and edited the Northern Territory Times and Gazette.
He became a foundation member in 1874 of the Palmerston District Council, where he served for several terms. When the Northern Territory was granted parliamentary representation in South Australia’s House of Assembly in April 1890, Vaiben returned at the head of the poll. While urging economic development of the Territory, particularly the completion of the transcontinental railway between Adelaide and Palmerston, he advocated the total exclusion of Chinese and other Asians.
He wound up his affairs at Palmerston, returned to Adelaide and gave a number of public lectures en route opposing Chinese migration to the eastern colonies.
From Adelaide, his next stop was Western Australia, where he speculated in gold mining. In 1896 he entered the Adelaide Stock Exchange. As a result of his forceful personality, he became a prominent figure in colonial politics, first as government whip for the administration from 1890 to 1891 and again in 1893 when he was forced to resign as an insolvent in March 1891 mainly due to his Territory mining ventures.
He was re-elected at a subsequent by-election in May before he had even received his certificate of discharge. In June 1899, he became leader of the conservative opposition, a motley group of parliamentary factions dubbed the ‘Forlorn Hope’. However, in November, he led the attack, which brought down the current administration, and he was asked to form a government.
He became Premier and Treasurer on 1 December, but his government faced the House on only two occasions; the first to announce its policy, the second when it was defeated by a simple adjournment motion on 8 December. The sole Jew to have been a colonial or State Premier, leading the shortest-lived South Australian government.
It was the last of the factional administrations following the emergence of the Labor Party during the 1890s. Vaiben was always a forceful and witty debater within the parliament but never held another ministerial portfolio.
Always a staunch advocate of intercolonial free trade, he considered it a distinction to have been elected a delegate to the Australasian Federal Convention in 1897 and to have helped draft the Federal Constitution. In 1901, with South Australia voting as a single electorate, he was returned to the federal parliament but was defeated in 1903 for the seat of Boothby, South Australia. In May 1905 he was again returned as Northern Territory representative to the South Australian Legislative Assembly where by 1908 he was Deputy Leader of the Opposition. He was always a determined advocate for the Territory and supported its transfer from South Australia to the Commonwealth.
Time did not stand still for him, and he went on to compile successive issues of the Northern Territory Times Almanac and Directory between 1886 and 1890 as well as later publishing in 1894 a Guide to Western Australia and its goldfields. Together with Thomas Harry, he wrote Australia at Play in 1908, a pamphlet that guyed the Australian attitude to sport.
Vaiben died of cancer in Adelaide on 20 October 1908 and was buried in the Adelaide Jewish cemetery. Vaiben married twice in his lifetime – the first time to his earlier love Mary who his father forbade him to do and which he did so three months after his father’s passing. By that time, she had become a widow with a young son. On 22 July 1896 in Melbourne, he married Alice Cohen, who survived him with three children and the daughter of his first marriage. His daughter Esther was the first woman elected to the Adelaide City Council: a councillor for twenty-two years and an alderman, she served two terms as deputy mayor.
The AJHS acknowledges the following references in the preparation of this story:-Australian Dictionary of Biography – Peter Donovan; Wikipedia; Australian Parliament House; State Library of South Australia.
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