People Australia

Charles Culley, 1920s

National Library of Australia, 24206370

Charles Ernest Culley (1877-1949) miner, trade union official and parliamentarian 

Birth: 16 April 1877 at Broadmarsh, Tasmania, son of native-born parents James Culley (1847-1923), shoemaker, and Julia, née Smith (1856-1923). Marriage: 27 June 1906 with Anglican rites at the residence of the bride’s father, Beaconsfield, Tasmania, to native-born Mary Jane Pope (1881-1954). They had one daughter and four sons. Death: 10 June 1949 at Sanitarium, New Town, Hobart. Religion: Anglican. 

• Young Culley left school when aged 12, carried mail and distributed newspapers. He was employed as a jockey and stable hand in North Tasmania and also worked as a private stable hand.
• He was a miner at Broken Hill, New South Wales, in about 1901-02, and later worked at various mines in Tasmania until 1911. Then he moved to Hobart as a labourer and to Margate, as a hopfield worker, also a builders’ labourer.
• Secretary of various unions, including Beaconsfield branch of Amalgamated Miners Employees, Builders’ Labourers, Federated Liquor and Allied Trades Employees, Female Confectioners, Amalgamated Clothing and Allied Trades.
• He was a foundation member of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and president, secretary Hobart Trades Hall Council. Representative ILO conferences, Geneva, 1927, 1938. President, Tasmanian ALP 1944-47. “Every organisation that needs a helping hand readily obtains his assistance whenever it is required”.
• He was member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly for the seat of Denison from 1922 to 1928.
• Member of the Australian House of Representatives for Denison from 1928 to 1931, he was honorary minister in 1931 until he resigned from Cabinet over Scullin’s acceptance of the Premier’s Plan.
• He was again elected member for Denison in the Tasmanian parliament in 1934. From 1943 to 1946 he was Chief Secretary. He left parliament in 1948.
• Cause of death: chronic pulmonary tuberculosis and asthenia. 

Sources
Scott Bennett and Barbara Bennett, Biographical Register of the Tasmanian Parliament, 1851-1960, (Canberra, 1980); Joan Rydon, (ed), A biographical register of the Commonwealth Parliament 1901-1972 (ANU Press, 1975); Advocate, 30 June 1949; Woman’s Clarion, 20 March 1924.