People Australia

Con Hogan, caricature by Mick Paul, 1909,

Worker (Wagga, NSW), 11 March 1909, p 19

Cornelius (Con) Hogan (1867-1933) labourer, trade union official and alderman

Birth: 1867 at Kapunda, South Australia, son of Daniel Hogan (1825-1892), a labourer, born in County Westmeath, Ireland, and Mary Anne, née Fraser (1834-1912), born at Inverness, Scotland. Marriage: 8 February 1910 at Sydney, New South Wales to Sydney-born Catherine (Katie) Carter (1886-1954). They had four sons. Death: 5 August 1933 in his home at Burns Road, St John’s Park Cabramatta, Sydney, New South Wales. Religion: Catholic. 

• Moved to New South Wales about 1886.
• Joined United Laborers’ Protective Society (ULPS) in 1900 and became president that year.
• Was ULPS delegate to Labor Council of NSW during much of period 1900-10. Member of Labor Council organising committee and parliamentary committee from 1906 and was on executive committee in 1908-1909. Employees’ representative on Unskilled Labourers (United Laborers) Wages Board in 1909. Vice President of Labor Council in 1910.
• Was a member of the Royal Commission inquiring into the condition of the rock-choppers in the employ of the Water and Sewerage Board.
• Delegate to NSW Political Labor League (PLL) Conference in 1910. Senior vice-president of the PLL in 1910-1911. Labor Party candidate in NSW elections for Gloucester in 1910 (after controversial pre-selection), for Goulburn in 1917. Contested the Federal seat of Cowper in 1913.
• Increasingly conservative and immersed in Labor Party. Was an alderman on Redfern council, representing Golden Grove ward from 1911 to 1917. Active in the anti-conscription campaign during World War I.
• Full-time organiser of the Railway Workers and General Labourers’ Association (RWGLA) from 1911. Assistant Secretary RWGLA 1915. When RWGLA merged with Australian Workers’ Union in 1916 became assistant secretary of the Railway Workers’ Industry Branch, AWU.
• In 1917 was a member of the No. 1 (Permanent Way and Signalling) Board. Late in life was an old age pensioner.
• Cause of death: chronic bronchitis and chronic myocarditis.
• One son Sergeant Cornelius Placid Hogan (1912-1942), postal assistant, served in the 3rd Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, in World War II and was killed in action on the Kokoda Track, Papua New Guinea on 17 October 1942.

Sources
United Laborers’ Protective Society Minutes 8 Jan. and passim (State Library of NSW). Trades and Labor Council of NSW Minutes eg 7 June 1900, 5 July 1906, 20 February 1908, 2 July 1908, 21 January 1909, 6 and 13 January 1910, 14 July 1910; Transcripts of Industrial Court 7/5370, 7 Nov 1909; Sydney Morning Herald, 3 August 1910; Navvy 1912-16; International Socialist, 5 November 1910 p 2.