People Australia

Jim Scully, n.d.

James Skene (Jim) Scully (1912-2013) hairdresser and trade union official

Birth: 9 March 1912 at Edinburgh, Scotland, son of Harry Alexander Scully (1887-1937), hairdresser, and Emma Lander Bennett Best, née Hall (1890-1978. Marriage: 1940 at Wickham, Newcastle, New South Wales, to native-born Elsie Vera (Vera) Jones (b.1915). They had three children. Death: 20 May 2013 at Newcastle, NSW. 

• Arrived in Australia with his parents in 1926. He and his father worked as hairdressers at Newcastle, NSW.
• Honorary secretary of a sub-branch of the Hairdressers & Wigmakers Employees’ Union when formed in 1938. President of the Hairdressers & Wigmakers Employees’ Union in 1952; organiser 1953; secretary from 1955 to 1975.
• Delegate to NSW Labor Council and Australian Council of Trade Unions. Delegate to Newcastle Trades Hall Council from 1938 to 1941. Moved to Sydney in the late 1940s.
• Joined Australian Labor Party about 1952; secretary when Mosman branch was formed about 1957. Vice-president of Mosman branch for some years.
• Member of NSW State executive of the ALP for several years. Secretary and convenor of combined ALP-Labor Council. Member of health and social services committee for approximately fifteen years. Member of disputes committee for five or six years; member of land and valuation committee; member of finance and health Committees in 1973.
• Retired about 1976. Lived for some time at Warners Bay, before moving into Maroba Aged Care at Waratah, Newcastle.

Sources
Labor Year Book 1973 p. 29.