People Australia

Jim Sheehan, n.d.

National Library of Australia

James Michael Sheehan (1889-1967), railway employee, trade union official, mayor and parliamentarian 

Birth: 24 July 1889 at Castlemaine, Victoria, son of Michael Patrick Sheehan (1846-1909), a blacksmith born at Limerick, Ireland, and his third wife native-born Ellen, née Firminger (1857-1939). Unmarried. Death: 10 April 1967 in his home at Clinkers Hill, Castlemaine. Religion: Catholic. 

• Educated at St Mary’s Primary School, Castlemaine.
• Joined Victorian Railways in his youth. Worked for State Rivers & Water Supply Commission at Nyah and Swan Hill. Rejoined railways in 1911. He was an organiser for the Victorian Railways Union in 1919-1921 and for the Australian Railways Union in 1921.
• He joined the Political Labour Council (Australian Labor Party) in 1901. He was a member of the Victorian Socialist Party from 1916 until 1932 and trustee in 1918.
• Having been defeated as a candidate for the Australian Senate in 1931 he was a Labor Senator for Victoria from 1938 until he was defeated in 1940. He was Victorian State president of the ALP that year. Re-elected to the Senate in 1943 he held his seat until he retired in 1960.
• President of the Trades Hall Council in 1943. He was councillor for Castlemaine from 1951 to 1966 and mayor of Castlemaine in 1957-1958, with his unmarried sister Ellen (Nellie) Sheehan as mayoress.
• He was an Australian delegate to the Inland Transport Committee of the International Labour Organization meeting in London in 1945 and member of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference there in 1961.
• He was sometime member of the University of Melbourne Extension Board; member of the Victorian Education Committee; president of the Richmond Cricket Club, 1940-1967 and vice-president of Richmond Football Club.
• Cause of death: congestive cardiac failure (years) and emphysema (years). 

Sources
Joan Rydon (ed), A biographical register of the Commonwealth Parliament 1901-1972 (ANU Press, 1975): Who’s Who in Australia 1941-1965; Age (Melbourne),; FW; L. F. Crisp & S. P. Bennett, Australian Labor Party: federal personnel 1901-1954, (Canberra, 1954); Argus (Melbourne), 16 September 1944; Herald (Melbourne), 13 July 1938, 4 June 1943; Age (Melbourne), 18 June 1940, 11 April 1967; Sun News Pictorial (Melbourne), 16 April 1938; Recorder, No. 82, June 1976; Labor Call (Melbourne), 29 March 1951, p 5; Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate. https://biography.senate.gov.au/sheehan-james-michael/