People Australia

AWU Executive, 1922 [Durkin is second from left, back row]

from Daily Standard (Brisbane), 28 October, 1922, p 8

John Michael (Jack) Durkin (1880- 1950) shearer, trade union official 

Birth: 30 October 1880 at Ollera, near Armidale, New South Wales, eldest surviving son of Irish-born John Michael Durkin (1856-1942), labourer, later farmer, and native-born Bridget Agnes O’Brien, née Kelly (1863-1945). Marriage: (1) 6 June 1921 to Helena Georgina Neilsen, who died in 1922. (2) 30 May 1929 to Thelma May Jenkin. They had one daughter, and divorced on 6 June 1947.  Death: 5 June 1950 in Brisbane Hospital. Religion: Catholic.

• Aged 14 he performed picket duty at Moree, in 1894 shearers strike. Became shearer and organiser for Australian Workers’ Union in western Queensland, holding post for six years.
• Took principled stand as Australian Labor Party candidate for Murilla in the 1918 Queensland elections, criticising the Queensland Labor government over its stand on 44-hour week.
• In December 1920 elected Western District (Longreach branch) secretary of AWU, defeating veteran Richard Bow.
• Contested unsuccessfully ALP pre-selection plebiscite for Federal Senate in November 1924.
• In November 1926 was dismissed from position of AWU district secretary for refusing to white ant the Australian Railways Union.
• As an independent, lost to official ALP candidate ‘Dick’ Bow in by-election for Legislative Assembly seat of Mitchell in May 1928.
• Was a ‘Left Wing’ [pro-Communist] candidate for Fortitude Valley, in 1929 State elections.
• In the 1930s worked as a shearer and miner around Brisbane. In the 1940s was a farmer and grazier at the family’s property, Arranmore, near Glen Innes, NSW, which his father had taken up as a selector in the 1890s.
• Cause of death lymphatic leukemia and hepatic cirrhosis.

Sources
Workers’ Weekly (Sydney), 8 March 1929, p 4.