People Australia

John Hodge (Jock) King (1909-1977) coalminer, Communist and gaoled trade union official

Birth: 8 May 1909 at Beath, Fifeshire, Scotland, son of John Hodge King (1872-1943), coalminer, and Euphemia Swan, née Milne (1874-1950). Marriage: 1934 at Balmain, Sydney, New South Wales, to Helen Eadie Erskine (c.1910-1950). They had one daughter. Death: 7 July 1977 in hospital at Lithgow, NSW; usual residence Evelyn Street, Lithgow. 

• Worked as a coalminer in Scotland in 1923. Emigrated to Australia in 1925, departing London with his father aboard the Esperance Bay on 12 May 1925. The rest of his family arrived in 1926. Jock was a coalminer, northern coalfields, NSW.
• Moved to the Lithgow district. Was a coalminer at Western District coal mines including Oakey Park, Ivanhoe and Steelworks mines. Joined the Communist Party of Australia.
• Vice-president, Western District, Australasian Coal and Shale Employees' Federation for two years, then secretary from 1946 until he retired in 1969.
• During the 1949 coal strike King was charged, along with other Federation officials, with contempt of court and sentenced to a month's imprisonment for refusing to give information on whereabouts of district funds, then brought before court again in handcuffs and sentenced to a further 12 months' imprisonment. Spent seven weeks in gaol before his release.
• Was a Communist alderman on Lithgow City Council for ten years. As CPA candidate he contested State election against Hamilton Knight in 1947, federal seat of Macquarie held by Chifley in 1949; and Macquarie again in 1954.
• Committee member of Lithgow Workmen’s Club, from 1962 to 1969, including president and treasurer.
• Cause of death: cancer of lung.

Sources
Edgar Ross, A history of the Miners' Federation of Australia ([Sydney] 1970); Pete Thomas, Miners in the 1970s: a narrative history of the Miners’ Federation (Sydney [1983]); information supplied by E. Ross, 1990; John Playford Doctrinal and strategic problems of the Communist Party of Australia, 1945-1962, PhD thesis, ANU, p 424; Common Cause, 10 October 1949 p 8, 17 May 1969, 19 January 1976 p 5, 3 December 1976 p 3.