Joseph Aloysius Lyons was born in this tiny cottage in Stanley in 1879. He was a teacher before joining the Workers' Political League and this led him into politics. By 1914 he was deputy leader of the Labor Party. In 1923 he was elected State Premier. The Party lost power in 1928 but Lyons headed to Canberra, where he held a number of offices before resigning from the ministry in 1931. Two months later, "Honest Joe" as he was known, was leader of a new movement - the United Australia Party - and within nine months he was Prime Minister. The school house where he taught for nine years has been restored by the National Trust. Home Hill, the home of Joe and Dame Enid Lyons, in Devonport, remains exactly as Dame Enid left it, and it is open to the public.
