People Australia

Edward Victor (Vic) Cogan (1888-1969) labourer, millhand, trade union official and gaoled IWW member

Birth: 1 April 1888 at Gawler South, South Australia, son of native-born parents William Cogan (1854-1924), farmer, later carter, and Emily, née Summerton (1855-1933). Probably unmarried. Death: 18 October 1969 in the Old Folks Home, Magill, South Australia. Religion: Catholic [on gaol description entry]. 

• The family moved to Silverton, New South Wales, in about 1890.
• Vic was a member of the Amalgamated Miners’ Association in Broken Hill by 1906. By 1909 he was prominent in the Barrier Socialist Group. In March that year he was treasurer of the committee appointed to raise funds to assist the defence of Harry Holland and in April presided at a meeting of the group at which Holland and others spoke. In September 1910 Cogan was one of the Socialist speakers in a debate with Australian Labor Party members. That year he was described as a millhand when he gave evidence in a court case.
• In June 1911 he was secretary of the local branch of the Socialist Federation of Australia and, with others, including his brother-in-law Patrick Lamb and Mick Considine, signed a letter which had been sent to Rev Father (later Bishop) Andrew Killian in support of Irish emancipation, and was published in the press.
• Cogan was involved in moves to form a union of newsboys in 1910. In 1915 he presided over a meeting at the Trades Hall of unemployed single men. At a civic reception to William A. Holman he was reproved for criticising the premier for fighting for the ruling class. Cogan soon became a vocal opponent of conscription.
• He also joined the Industrial Workers of the World, although his membership had lapsed when, on 3 September 1917, he was sentenced with others, including Mick Sawtell, to six months hard labour for continuing to be a member of an unlawful association.
• While serving his sentence for the IWW membership, in January 1918 he was further accused, with Sawtell and others, of having, on 22 August 1917, caused a riot and of encouraging persons to commit a crime of obstructing the engine at the South Mine. The riot case was withdrawn but he was sentenced to a further six months imprisonment for the other charge. On appeal, at Broken Hill District Court Sessions on 12 April 1918, he was acquitted by a sympathetic judge, Walter Bevan (1857-1938). He had been released from gaol the previous month.
• His whereabouts from then are unknown until his death was recorded in South Australia.
• Cause of death: senility, Parkinson’s disease and myocardial degeneration.