People Australia

John Cornelius (Con) Lindsay (1864-1941) journalist and political activist 

Birth: 1864 in Canada, son of Cornelius Lindsay, gentleman, and Julia, née Kinsela. Marriage: 2 January 1889 in St Patrick’s Catholic Cathedral, Melbourne, Victoria to native-born Mabel Beatrice O’Dee (1871-1956). They had two daughters and one son. Death: 25 May 1941 in hospital at Heidelberg, Melbourne. 

• Arrived in Victoria with his parents as a child and after a few years was taken to India where he was educated. Travelled extensively in the East.
• Returned to Australia in the mid-1880s. Became attached to the Melbourne press.
• Moved to Sydney and entered into Labor agitation in 1890. Delegate to Sydney Trades and Labor Council. Was instrumental in forming branches of the Labor Electoral Leagues which were predecessors in NSW of the present branches of the ALP.
• Contested seat of Molong, an electorate in which Labor policy was either unknown or detested, in 1891. Was a founding member of the Dawn and Dusk Club and friendly with Fred Broomfield, Nelson Illingworth, Victor Daley and Henry Lawson.
• Moved to New Zealand in 1899 “to engage on a journalistic enterprise” for several years and engaged in newspaper work.
• Resided in Melbourne in 1926 and was employed by magazine Bohemia, contributing articles. In 1938 he was a founding committee-member of the Melbourne literary society, the Bread and Cheese Club.
• Cause of death: rupture of the heart [verdict of coroner’s inquest].

Sources
Labor Call (Melbourne), 5 June 1941, p 7; N. B, Nairn, Civilising Capitalism: the Labor movement in New South Wales 1870-1900, (Canberra, 1973), p 37.