People Australia

Jack Cochrane, n.d.

John Patrick (Jack) Cochran (1864-1926) wharf labourer, trade union official and politician

Birth: 8 March 1864 at Lower Manning, New South Wales, son of Irish-born parents Thomas Cochran (1826-1873), mariner and pilot station crew-member, Manning river, from Cork, and Ellen, née Lennon (1834-1920), from Cappoquin, County Waterford, housemaid. Unmarried. Death: 2 December 1926 at Little Bay, Sydney. Religion: Catholic. 

• Member, and Trades and Labor Council (TLC) delegate of Sydney Wharf Labourers’ Union and vice-president NSW TLC 1894. Secretary, Sydney division Council and Eastern Provincial Council of Australasian Labor Federation from July 1894 to April 1901 (including stints of leave/resignation to do with intermittent rural work 1897-8). United Laborers’ Protective Society (ULPS) delegate to NSW TLC, 1899. Active honorary official; president and financial secretary, United Laborers 1901-1903.
• First full-time United Laborers’ secretary in June 1903 and delegate to TLC in 1903 to 1904. Secretary NSW TLC from 1904 to 1910.
• Contested Balmain ward in municipal elections in 1904. Member Australian Labor Party central executive in 1905 and 1907-08.
• In October 1905 was elected by TLC to be representative of Labor on University of Sydney Extension Board, following Herbert Goodere who had been a member of the board from 1893 to 1903. He resigned on being elected to parliament and was replaced by E. J. Kavanagh.
• Elected ALP member of the NSW Legislative Assembly for Darling Harbour in a by-election on 13 April 1910. Retired from parliament on 18 February 1920. Contested North Shore seat in 1922.
• After leaving parliament worked as a clerk in the Department of Labour and Industry and was appointed by the new Labor government to the Racing Advisory Committee. He was again active in the ULPS and in ALP political campaigning.
• ‘Frequent contributor to various publications on matters of economic interest and …verse writer of no mean ability’.
• Cause of death: cirrhosis of the liver.

Sources
Heather Radi, Peter Spearritt and Elizbeth Hinton (eds), Biographical Register of the NSW Parliament 1901-1970 (Canberra, 1979); L. Frost, Official Souvenir for the Eight-Hour Demonstration, 1900, Sydney, 1900; TLC of NSW, Minutes, 1890-1910, Mitchell Library, Sydney. United Laborers’ Protective Society, minutes, 1899-1905.