Early years and speakership

At the 1904 state election, Troy contested the seat of Mount Magnet for the Labor Party. A resident of Cue at the time of his nomination, his only opponent was a mine manager from the Mount Magnet townsite, who was a Ministerialist (a supporter of the government of Walter James).^[4] Aged only 26 at the election, Troy won with 61.26 percent of the vote, replacing Frank Wallace (who did not re-contest) in parliament.^[5] When parliament first met after the election, in August, he was appointed assistant secretary to Frederick Gill for the Labor Party, a position which broadly entailed the duties of a whip.^[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 early 1905 election, which had been pre-empted by the defeat of Henry Daglish's minority Labor government. Running against a supporter of Cornthwaite 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 new Leader of the Opposition, Thomas Bath.^[9] He (and several other Labor MPs in Goldfields constituencies) went on to be re-elected unopposed at both the 1908 and 1911 elections.^[10][11] Labor, now under the leadership of John Scaddan, won majority 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,^{[lower-alpha 1]} 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 the ceremonial mace, which was not received favourably.^[15] Nonetheless, Troy was re-elected speaker unanimously after the 1914 election, with his conduct praised by the leaders of all three major parties – Labor's Scaddan, the Liberal Party's Frank Wilson, and the Country Party's James 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's Edward Johnston.^[19]

Front bench

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