People Australia

John (Jack) Howie (1890-1953) cooper and trade union official

Birth: 1890 at Hamilton, Newcastle, New South Wales, son of William Howie (1866-1939), cooper, and Sarah Jane, née Watson (1865-1955). Both parents had been born at Newcastle, NSW. Marriage. 1914 at Newtown, Sydney, to native-born Lily May Barnier (1889-1969). They had one daughter. Death: 22 March 1953 in hospital at Camperdown, Sydney; usual residence Atkinson street, Arncliffe. 

• May have been the John Howie, aged 11, found habitually wandering about the streets of Broadmeadow, Newcastle, who could neither read nor write and was committed to the ships Vernon and Sobraon on 7 August 1902.
• Was Coopers’ Union delegate, leader in anti-conscription struggle, during World War I. On NSW Trades and Labor Council (TLC) from 1914 to about 1920. President NSW Labor Council 1919, three times president.
• Participated in formation of Australian Council of Trade Unions. On management committee of TLC’s Sydney Labor College in 1919 with A. J. Macpherson, Dan Clyne, Jock Garden, John Kilburn A. C. Willis and Arthur Rae.
• Visited England, Germany, and Russia about 1920 and was influenced by Communist ideas. Delegate of the ACTU to the Red International of Labor Unions congress in 1921. Represented RILU in Australia. In 1922 published RILU objective, with introduction by Emil Voigt.
• A foundation member Communist Party of Australia from 1921 to 1926, he was sometime acting-secretary, and remained active member until his death. His colleague Vance Marshall described Howie in 1925 as “a sturdy, broad-shouldered, dark-haired young man . . . dogged, stubborn, determined, reticent to a degree . . . one of the outstanding products of industrialism in Australia”.
• Member of the ‘Hands off China’ committee in 1938.
• Refused admission to Australian Labor Party Conference after Ballot Box Inquiry.
• Seems to have been a hotelkeeper in western NSW in the 1930s. Later lived at Arncliffe, Sydney.
• Cause of death: carcinoma of stomach with metastases (6 months).

Sources
Alistair B. Davidson, The Communist Party of Australia 1920-35: policy and organisation, PhD ANU Canberra 1966; Malcolm Henry Ellis, The red road: the story of the capture of the Lang party by Communists, instructed from Moscow (Sydney [1932]); Tribune, 25 March 1953 p 2.