People Australia

Thomas (Tom) Johnston (c.1859-1934) miner, Christian socialist and political activist

Birth: about 1859 at West Auckland, County of Durham, England, son of Thomas Johnston, miner and Emily, née Henderson. Marriage: 3 August 1898 at Tighes Hill, Newcastle, New South Wales, with Primitive Methodist forms to a divorcée, Sarah, née Leighton, late Blenkinsop (1863-1940), a housekeeper, who had been born at Nova Scotia, in Durham, England. They had one daughter and one son. [The children, born in 1889 and 1891 respectively, were registered as the children of Lawson and Sarah Blenkinsop]. Death: 18 June 1934 in his usual residence at Main Road, Estellville, West Wallsend, Newcastle, NSW. Religion: buried with Presbyterian forms. 

• Johnston came to Australia in 1886 and settled at Greta, NSW, where he worked as a miner. “At one period he was under-manager of Greta Colliery. He was also employed at Hetton and Bullock Island, Stockton, Minmi, Killingworth and Seaham No. 2”, where, “prior to his retirement about 1933 he was employed as screen foreman”.
• From about 1906 “he resided at West Wallsend, where he took an active part in industrial and political matters”.
• With Dave McNeill, in 1911 he was ejected from the Colliery Employees’ [Miners] Federation for refusing to pay a levy to support the Political Labor League. He stood as a Socialist Labor Party (SLP) candidate for the State seat of Newcastle in March 1920.
• Johnston was a keen debater. An autodidact of the SLP, he was a frequent writer of letters to the press on industrial, religious and political matters and was regarded as an authority on mining conditions.
• He took a keen interest in Friendly Societies, and was a member of the Free Gardeners from 1904, serving the order in various offices.
• Cause of death: senile decay (2 years) and heart failure (½ hour). 

Sources
Information in letter by Tony Laffan; Newcastle Morning Herald, 28 June 1934, p 5.