People Australia

Charlie Kilpatrick, 1925

Charles McKenzie (Charlie) Kilpatrick (1871-1935) miner, trade union official and parliamentarian

Birth: 1 November 1871 at Pollokshaws, Renfrewshire [now part of Glasgow], Scotland, son of John Hutchison Kilpatrick (1836-1907), coal miner, and Annie, née McKenzie (1847-1913). Marriage: Larkhall, Lanark, Scotland, to Marion Rodger. They had five daughters and four sons. Grandfather of Digger Murphy. Death: 28 May 1935 at Ipswich, Queensland. Religion: Presbyterian. 

• Worked as a miner on the Lanark coalfield.
• Migrated to Queensland in 1912. Worked as a coalminer at Ipswich. First full-time president of the Queensland Colliery Employees' Union from 1915, retaining position until his death. Also served as Queensland District mines check inspector from 1915.
• Member State Coal Board & Conciliation Board. Prominent member of the Australian Labor Party. Member of the ALP Queensland central executive.
• Appointed member of the Legislative Council of Queensland on February 1920. Member of the M. Mulligan Disaster Commission in 1921. That year voted in favour of Legislative Council's abolition and his parliamentary service ceased in March 1922.
• Queensland delegate to first national convention of Miners' Federation, Sydney, in 1925. During his final years in union office, challenged views of federation's Communist leaders William Orr and Charles Nelson from a Labor-reformist position.

Sources
D. B. Waterson, Biographical register of the Queensland Parliament 1860-1929 (2^nd revised edition, Sydney, 2001).; Edgar Ross, A history of the Miners' Federation of Australia ([Sydney] 1970); Pete Thomas, The coalminers of Queensland: a narrative history of the Queensland Colliery Employees Union. Volume 1 Creating the traditions (Ipswich,1986); information from E. Ross, 1990.