Billy Hughes

William (‘Billy’) Morris Hughes (1862–1952), Australian politician, Prime Minister of Australia (1915–1923), and pupil of Alexander.

Connection with Alexander

In 1909 Alexander Leeper presented his ‘The Report on Physical Culture in the United Kingdom and the Continent of Europe’ to the Victorian Teachers and Schools Registration Board. The report recommends Alexander’s method:

That what is known as the Alexander method of the re-education of the respiratory organs is deserving of the Board’s special attention.[1]

That the recommendation was not acted upon was apparently partly due to Billy Hughes; he had lessons with F. M. Alexander later and admitted to Alexander that he did not follow Leeper’s recommendation.[2]

Writings

‘Man’s future as an individual’ by Walter Carrington recounts the Billy Hughes episode.[3]

‘Jobs for the boys’ by Rosemary Chance quotes from Walter Carrington’s 1969 F. M. Alexander Memorial Lecture on the Billy Hughes episode.[4]

William Morris Hughes *25 September 1862 – †28 October 1952)

See also Alexander Leeper.

References

[1] A Means To An End – Articles and Letters on the Alexander Technique 1909–1955 edited by Jean M. O. Fischer (Mouritz, 2015), p. 208.

[2] ‘Man’s future as an individual’ by Walter Carrington in An Evolution of the Alexander Technique by Walter Carrington, Dilys Carrington (Sheildrake Press, 2017), p. 42.

[3] ‘Man’s future as an individual’ by Walter Carrington in An Evolution of the Alexander Technique by Walter Carrington, Dilys Carrington (Sheildrake Press, 2017).