People Australia

Norman Makin, n.d.

National Library of Australia, 25968633

Norman John Oswald Makin (1889-1982)

Birth: 31 March 1889, Petersham, Sydney, NSW. Son of John Hulme and Elizabeth. Married: Ruby F. Jennings, 1912. They had two sons. Death: 20 July 1982. Methodist.

• Educated Central Public School Broken Hill, NSW;
• Started working life delivering parcels at age 13 and supplemented his meagre income by delivering newspapers;
• Allied himself with cultural movements and gained reputation as an amateur actor and elocutionist;
• Delegate from Shop Assistants’ Union to Barrier District Assembly, c.1908;
• Associated with IWW (International Workers of the World) and called in trial to give evidence in defence of Tom Mann in Albury NSW;
• Moved to South Australia and gained apprenticeship as patternmaker;
• Officer, Australian Society of Engineers; President, SA ALP 1918-19;
• Member of House of Representatives, Hindmarsh, 1919-46 (defeated), Sturt 1954-?, Bonython 1955-63 (retired); Contested Barossa SA 1915, Wakefield 1917; Speaker 1929-31, Minister for the Navy and for Munitions, 1941-46, for Aircraft Production, 1945-46;
• Secretary, Parliamentary Labor Party 1928-29, 1934-41; S.A.'s representative on Federal executive, ALP; Vice-president Eight-Hour Committee in Adelaide; First Australian Ambassador to USA 1946-51; First president, UN Security Council;
• Cornishman and Methodist lay preacher 

Joan Rydon, A Biographical Register of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1901-1972 (Canberra, 1975); Jim Moss, Sound of Trumpets: history of the labour movement in South Australia (Cowandilla, S. Aust, 1985); Australian Worker, 3 June 1915