People Australia

Lance Sharkey, 1965

courtesy of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and SEARCH Foundation

Lawrence Louis (Lance) Sharkey (1898-1967) gaoled Communist leader

Birth: 19 August 1898 at Warry Creek farm near Cargo, New South Wales, son of native-born parents, Michael Sharkey (1862-1930), a farmer later hotelier, and Mary, née Teefy (1873-1934). Marriage: 10 December 1936 at the district registrar’s office, Petersham, Sydney, to Catherine Craig Maxwell (1909-1995), a stenographer born at Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland. Death: 13 May 1967 at Sydney, NSW. Religion: raised as a Catholic. 

• His parents, who were from an Irish-Catholic background, worked a small farm which they were forced to leave due to debts incurred similar to many other small farmers in the area, Lawrence attended school in the country and in Orange.
• Gained an apprenticeship in coachmaking at 14 years of age. Was a part-time farm labourer. Moved to Sydney in 1920 and was employed in odd jobs such as lift driver at ‘Foy Chambers’. Was a member of the Miscellaneous Workers' Union (MWU) and became branch vice-president. Represented workers for a long-awaited wage increase in the Arbitration Court. MWU delegate to NSW Trades and Labor Council for ten years.
• Member of the Industrial Workers of the World. Active in campaigns of unemployed after World War I when he experienced periods of unemployment. Assisted striking British seamen in Australian ports. Active in the ‘Hand Off China’ movement in 1924-1927.
• Joined the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) in 1922; member of CPA Central Committee; President of the CPA 1931-1948. Moved into leadership of Communist Party with Harry J. Moxon and J. B. Miles after the ousting of Kavanagh in 1929-1930. Elected member of the executive committee of the Communist International in 1935-1943 (when dissolved). National president of the CPA in 1945. General Secretary of the CPA from the retirement of Miles in 1948 until he resigned due to ill-health in 1965.
• Vice-chairman and chief theoretician of Communist Party. He made several trips to the Soviet Union in the early 1930s including as delegate to the Red International of Labor Unions. Active in unemployed and anti-eviction campaigns in the 1930s. Executive member of committee which struggled against the New Guard organisation and bore physical scars from those times. Member of the Workers’ Defence Corps.
• Gaoled for three years for sedition in 1949, but sentence was later reduced to 18 months. Editor of Workers' Weekly from 1930 to about 1940; editor of Communist Review in 1940s. In 1940, when the Australian Labor Party banned the CPA, the circulation of its papers was not only maintained but increased, as did its membership. He was a member of the Australian Journalists Association.
• Prominent in successful campaign against the 1951 Communist Party Dissolution Bill. Involved in peace movement.
• CPA candidate for Federal seats of Dalley in 1943 and Cook in 1946; stood for the Senate (for NSW) in 1934 and 1937.
• Author of several pamphlets including ‘Trade Unions’, ‘Australia Marches On’, ‘The Story of Government Enterprise’ and ‘History of the Communist Party of Australia’.
• Cause of death: coronary atherosclerosis. 

Sources
W.A. Wood, The Life Story of LL Sharkey, Fighter for Freedom, (Sydney, 1950); John Playford, Doctrinal and strategic problems of the Communist Party of Australia, 1945-1962, PhD thesis, ANU, 1962, p 431; Jean Devanny, Point of departure; the autobiography of Jean Devanny (St Lucia, 1986; information from E. Ross 1990; Merrifield Card Index State Library of Victoria; Malcolm Henry Ellis, The Garden path (Sydney, 1949); Alastair B. Davidson, The Communist Party of Australia 1920-35: policy and organisation, PhD ANU Canberra 1966; Wells, F. 1962. Nation, 2 June No. 95, pp 9-12; Seamen’s Journal, May 1967 p 124; Weekend Australian, 10-11 January 1998, p 5; Workers Weekly, 8 June 1934 No. 556, p 2; Tribune, 28 June 1967, p 11, 24 May 1967, p 5, 17 May 1967, p 1, 9 June 1965, p 2, 18 June 1949, p 4, 27 September 1946, 30 July 1946, p 6, 29 July 1943, p 8; News-Weekly, 7 April 1954; Observer, 19 September 1959; Nation, 2 June 1962.