Michael Francis "Frank" Troy (13 October 1877 – 7 January 1953) was an Australian politician who served in theLegislative Assembly ofWestern Australia from 1904 to 1939. A member of theLabor Party, he was theSpeaker of the Legislative Assembly from 1911 to 1917, the first from that party to hold the position. Later in his career, Troy spent long periods as afrontbencher, serving as a minister in thefirst andsecond Collier governments, and then in theWillcock government (where he wasdeputy premier). After leaving parliament, he served asAgent-General for Western Australia from 1939 to 1947.

Troy's parents were Ellen (née Maloney) and Patrick Troy, both Irish Catholic immigrants fromCounty Tipperary. He was born atPimlico,New South Wales, the locality on theRichmond River (nearBallina) where his father's farm was located.^[1] Troy's father died when he was very young, and his mother subsequently moved her ten children to the nearby town ofWardell, where she ran a store.^[2] Initially training as a schoolteacher, Troy left the profession after only two years, and instead worked various jobs in the country. He arrived in Western Australia in 1897 with the intention of prospecting for gold in the colony'sMurchison region. There, he became involved in the local trade union movement, serving in leadership roles with both theAustralian Workers' Union (AWU) and the Amalgamated Workers' Association (AWA) at various stages.^[1] Troy quickly rose to become secretary of the Murchison district AWA branch, succeedingJohn Holman (who had entered parliament).^[3]

At the1904 state election, Troy contested theseat of Mount Magnet for the Labor Party. A resident ofCue at the time of his nomination, his only opponent was a mine manager from theMount Magnet townsite, who was a Ministerialist (a supporter ofthe government ofWalter James).^[4] Aged only 26 at the election, Troy won with 61.26 percent of the vote, replacingFrank Wallace (who did not re-contest) in parliament.^[5] When parliament first met after the election, in August, he was appointed assistant secretary toFrederick Gill for the Labor Party, a position which broadly entailed the duties of awhip.^[6] Later in the year, in November, Troy was also elected to a one-year term as state general secretary of the AWA.^[7]

Troy again faced only a single opponent at the early1905 election, which had been pre-empted by the defeat ofHenry Daglish's minority Labor government. Running against a supporter ofCornthwaite Rason's new government, he increased his majority from the previous year, finishing with 66.15% (although on a much lower turnout).^[8] Following the election, Troy was made the Labor Party's chief whip, under the newLeader of the Opposition,Thomas Bath.^[9] He (and several other Labor MPs in Goldfields constituencies) went on to be re-elected unopposed at both the1908 and1911 elections.^[10][11] Labor, now under the leadership ofJohn Scaddan, wonmajority government for the first time in 1911, and put forward Troy as their candidate for speaker, who was elected unanimously.^[12] The first speaker from the Labor Party,^[a] Troy was only 34 when he assumed the speakership, making him, according to a later source, "the youngest member of any Australian parliament to hold that office".^[13]

Like almost all future Labor speakers, Troy shunned some of the regalia normally associated with the speakership, first not wearing the traditional wig, and then also dispensing with the gown.^[14] On at least one occasion, he also ceased use of theceremonial mace, which was not received favourably.^[15] Nonetheless, Troy was re-elected speaker unanimously after the1914 election, with his conduct praised by the leaders of all three major parties – Labor's Scaddan, theLiberal Party'sFrank Wilson, and theCountry Party'sJames Gardiner.^[16] At the election, he had been returned unopposed to his seat for a third consecutive time.^[17] After the defeat of the Labor government in July 1916, with Frank Wilson becoming premier for a second time, Troy initially continued on as speaker. However, he stepped down from the post in February 1917, in what he described as "purely a voluntary step",^[18] and was replaced by the Country Party'sEdward Johnston.^[19]

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Troy died inMount Lawley, the Perth suburb in which he had long been resident, in January 1953, after a long illness. He had married Flora Brown Mackinnon in April 1913, when he was 35.^[1] It was the first marriage for both of them (she being several years older than him), and the couple never had children, with Flora Troy dying just over a year before her husband.^[13]

• 1877 births
• 1953 deaths
• Agents-General for Western Australia
• Australian gold prospectors
• Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Western Australia
• Australian people of Irish descent
• Burials at Karrakatta Cemetery
• Members of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly
• People from the Northern Rivers
• Speakers of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly
• Trade unionists from Western Australia

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