People Australia

John Tucker, n.d.

Tucker, John Benjamin (1845-1926) wharf labourer, trade union official, and parliamentarian

Birth: 10 November 1845 in Devonshire, England, son of Robert Tucker, farmer, and Mary, née Lewis. Marriage: 1890 at South Melbourne, Victoria, to Matilda Elizabeth, née Williams, late Snook (1851-1924), born at Bristol, Somerset, England.  Death: 11 January 1926 in a private hospital at Surrey Hills, Victoria; usual residence Brougham Street, Box Hill. 

• Migrated to Victoria in 1861. Founding secretary of Melbourne Wharf Labourers’ Union in 1885 and remained secretary of union for many years. Prominent in strike 1885-1886. Member of the Board of Arbitration which subsequently settled the dispute.
• Led Wharf Labourers’ Union in 1890 maritime strike. Represented wharf labourers on Trades Hall Council (THC) from 1885.
• Contested Emerald Hill 1894 for Labor. Elected member of the Legislative Assembly for the seat of South Melbourne for United Labor Party and THC in a by-election on 26 May 1896, after the death of his colleague Joseph Winter, defeating five other candidates including Samuel Mauger, H. H. Champion, Thomas Bent and Henry Daglish.
• In February 1899 he was one of a party of Victorian legislators to visit Sydney to engage in a series of outdoor sports against the law-makers of NSW. Tucker participated in a three-rink match of lawn bowls.
• He lost his seat when the seat of Melbourne South was abolished in a redistribution in 1904. Was unsuccessful in an attempt to win Labor pre-selection for Melbourne Ports in 1906.
• Belonged to the moderate wing of the Parliamentary Labor Party which supported W. A. Trenwith’s leadership against radical criticism in the late 1890s.
• Opposed sending the first Victorian contingent to the Boer War but supported the second contingent arguing that the Empire was in peril. Was Harbor Trust commissioner 1902-1913.
• Member of the Sons of Freedom Lodge, No. 1149, Grand United Order of Oddfellows.
• Cause of death: arteriosclerosis and myocarditis (6 months).

Sources
Kathleen Thompson & Geoffrey Serle, A Biographical Register of the Victorian legislature, 1859-1900 (Canberra, 1972), p 211; W. E. Murphy, ‘Victoria’ in John Norton (ed) The History of Capital and Labour in All Lands and Ages, (Sydney, Melbourne 1888); Rupert Lockwood, Ship to Shore: A History of Melbourne’s Waterfront and its Union Struggles, (Sydney, 1990); Age, (Melbourne), 1 January 1886; Argus (Melbourne) 13 January 1926, p 1; Weekly Times, 6 June 1896, p 13; Melbourne Punch, 21 May 1896, p 353; Merrifield collection, State Library of Victoria.