People Australia

Ethel Georgina Clancey, née McMurray [also known as Clancy] (1878-1967) tailoress and political activist

Birth: 1878 at Ballarat, Victoria, daughter of Henry (Harry Percy) McMurray (1846-1896), a tailor and musician, born in Glasgow, Scotland, and Isabella (Bella), née Watson (1855-1925), born at Meredith, Victoria. Marriage: 3 May 1916 at St Paul’s Anglican Church, Cleveland Street, Sydney, New South Wales, to Queensland-born Harry de Burgh Clancey (1881-1963), a builder. They had one daughter. Death: 15 December 1967 in Mornington Convalescent Hospital at Campsie, Sydney; usual residence Stoney Creek Road, Kingsgrove, Sydney. Religion: Anglican. 

• The family had moved to Collingwood, Melbourne, by 1880 where her father worked as a tailor. Ethel was a tailoress, living at South Melbourne in 1914. She had moved to Sydney by 1916.
• Treasurer for the Woollahra branch of the Australian Labor Party in 1923-1924, Mrs Clancy (as she was usually described) later became one of Labor’s leading workers in the Rockdale district and the Barton electorate, prominent in both State and Federal election campaigns.
• In March 1927 she was commissioned a justice of the peace. She was given a surprise party in her honour in October 1929 and presented with a handsome eight-day clock. Her husband received “a smoker’s outfit, as a slight recompense for the loss of his wife’s society while she was devoting her time to Labor’s cause”.
• In 1933 she was president of the Granville ALP Women’s Auxiliary.
• A supporter of J. McKell and John Curtin, Clancey was a member of the NSW ALP State Executive from 1940 to 1952. She was an unsuccessful candidate for membership to the Legislative Council of NSW in March 1946.
• A member of the ALP’s Women’s Central Organising Committee, in 1952 she opposed the attempt to remove the abolition of the Upper House from the party platform and in 1954 supported H. V. Evatt.
• In June 1958 she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to charity in NSW.
• Cause of death: pulmonary oedema (3 days), coronary occlusion (3 days) and arteriosclerosis.