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J.S.T. MCGOWEN: A Biographical Sketch

By Lucy Taksa*

James Sinclair Taylor McGowen was born at sea to James McGowen, a boilermaker and Eliza (nee Ditchfield) on 16 August 1855 during their journey to Australia. His parents travelled from Lancashire in England because James had been promised employment with the Victorian Government. The family arrived in Melbourne when James Sinclair Taylor was three weeks old and they moved to NSW in 1867.

James McGowen had little schooling. He mainly worked with his father building bridges in Bathurst, Yass, O'Connell Plains and Aberdeen. In 1870 he became an apprentice boilermaker with P.N. Russell and Co. in Sydney, but after a strike in 1873 he obtained employment to the Atlas Works and later the Government's Fitzroy Dock at Cockatoo Island.

McGowen joined the United Society of Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders of New South Wales when it was formed in 1873 and was its Secretary intermittently from 1874 until 1890. In 1875 he obtained work at the Redfern railway workshops. When the Eveleigh railway workshops began operating during the 1880s, McGowen was transferred there and he helped to gain a closed shop on behalf of his union soon afterwards. In 1887 his rate of pay per day was 10 shillings 2 pence and by the time he resigned from Eveleigh in 1891 his pay had increased by the princely some of 4 pence per day.

In 1885 he became his union's delegate to the Labor Council and three years later he became its President. Also in 1888 he was elected President of the Eight Hour Day Committee. He remained in these positions until 1891. As an Executive member of the Trades Hall Committee he was instrumental in the building of the Sydney Trades Hall in Goulburn Street in the late 1880s. In 1884 he represented his union at the Second Inter Colonial Trades Union Congress in Melbourne.

In the interim, on 18 April 1878 he married Emily Towner in Redfern with Wesleyan forms. They had nine children, who were all born in Redfern, where McGowen was 'respected and liked in working class circles'. In 1896 he became a Justice of the Peace.

He was one of the foundation members of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Known as 'Honest Jim', he was the only official Labor Party candidate for a Redfern seat in 1891, which he won. In 1894 he was chosen as Leader of the State Parliamentary Labor Party, a position he retained until 1913, becoming a member of the Party's Central Executive in 1896.

McGowen was a good cricketer and active in district competitions in Sydney. As well, he became passionate about bowls, which he played in Redfern Park every Saturday afternoon. In the Federal election of 1901, McGowen failed to win the Seat of South Sydney. Between 1900 and 1904 he was a member of the NSW State Public Works Committee and between 1900 and 1908 he was a member of the State Children's Relief Board.

On 10 May 1904, he launched the State Labor Party's election campaign at the Redfern Town Hall. The following year, in July 1905, he addressed 'a public open air meeting' organised by the South Sydney Federal Labor League outside Hayden's Hotel, which was on the corner of Codrington and Abercrombie Streets, Redfern. His leadership was an important factor in the Labor Party’s victory at the NSW State elections in 1910. In October he became the first Labor Premier. He was also Treasurer from this time until November 1911, when he became Colonial Secretary. Also in 1911, he went to Britain for the coronation of King George V, and while there he travelled extensively, 'addressing the Derby Boilermakers' Society, breakfasting with Lloyd George, and interviewing John Burns. In 1912 he was appointed the Chair of the NSW Housing Board and he continued as Premier until June 1913, after which he was appointed Minister for Labour and Industry, a position he held until January 1914. During his Premiership much reforming legislation was passed. McGowen was a vocal supporter of union membership and state enterprise.

McGowan continued to live in and represent Redfern in the NSW Parliament until 1917.

During World War I, three of his sons joined the armed forces and one was killed at Gallipoli in 1915. When the Labor Party conference decided to oppose conscription for overseas service in 1916, McGowen disagreed and was expelled from the Labor Party with many others. At the elections in March 1917 he stood as Independent Labor, but he lost to William McKell. In July the new Premier, William Holman, appointed McGowen to the Legislative Council.

McGowan was a religious man who actively worked to relieve distress in Redfern. As the Superintendent of the Sunday School at St. Paul's Church for thirty-two years, he was also prominent in the district's Anglican community. In 1922, Labor Premier J. T. Dooley, appointed McGowen the NSW Film Censor.

McGowen died of heart disease on 7 April 1922 and in November a cenotaph for him was dedicated at St Paul's Church.

Sources
[N. Bede Nairn, 'The 1916-17 Labor Party Crisis in New South Wales and the Advent of W.J. McKell', Labour History, no. 16, May 1969, p. 10; Bede Nairn, 'McGowen, James Sinclair Taylor (1855-1922)', in Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle (eds), Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 10, 1891-1939, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1986, pp. 273-4; Ross McMullin, The Light on the Hill: The Australian Labor Party, 1891-1991, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1991, p. 12, p. 56, p. 112; George Black, A History of the NSW Labor Party From Conception until 1917, Sydney, n.d., vol. 3, p. 13; vol. 4, pp. 8-9; vol. 5, p. 4; vol. 6, p. 35; H.V. Evatt, William Holman: Australian Labour Leader, (1940) Angus & Roberston, Sydney, 1979, p. 106, p. 187; The Worker, 16 March 1901, 27 April 1901, 14 May 1904, 10 June, 1905, 19 July 1905; Sydney Morning Herald, 12 August, 1901, p. 5; Heather Radi, Peter Spearritt and Elizabeth Hinton, Biographical Register of the New South Wales Parliament, 1901-1970, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1979, p. 178; Peter Loveday, 'New South Wales', in D.J. Murphy (ed.), Labor in Politics: the state labor parties in Australia, 1880-1920, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, 1975, p. 111.]

* Lucy Taksa is Associate Professor at the School of Industrial Relations and Organisational Behaviour, The University of NSW. This article is part of an ongoing project investigating McGowen and his relationship to the Eveleigh railway workshops.
Email: l.taksa@unsw.edu.au

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