People Australia

James Wilkinson, by Swiss Studios, 190?

National Library of Australia, 23515840

James Wilkinson (1853-1915) railway worker, trade union official, journalist, parliamentarian and alderman 

Birth: 30 November 1853 at Ipswich, Queensland, son  of Robert Henry Wilkinson (1828-1905), a labourer and sawyer, born at Hulme, Lancashire, England, and Mary, née Farrell (1830-1914), born at Scariff, Clare, Ireland. Marriage: 7 November 1874 at Harrisville, Queensland, to Louisa Ann Smith (1855-1926), born at Upton, Berkshire, England. They had five sons and three daughters. Death: 11 January 1915 in his home at Martin Street, Ipswich. Religion: Congregationalist; buried with Presbyterian forms. 

• Educated at state and grammar schools in Ipswich. Employed as an enginedriver on Queensland railways at Ipswich from 1875 to 1889. Was founding secretary of the Queensland Enginedrivers and Firemens Association in 1885.
• Left the Railway Department to become founding permanent general secretary of the Queensland Railway Employees Association in 1889. He was founder/editor of Queensland Railway Times about 1890.
• Member, Ipswich Workers Political Organisation and the Australian Natives’ Association. Member of the Queensland central executive of the Australian Labor Party from 1895 to 1900 and assistant secretary in 1892-1894.
• Having unsuccessfully contested the seat of Ipswich in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland for the ALP in 1893, he was elected member for Ipswich in a by-election on 31 March 1894, becoming the first Ipswich native to represent Ipswich in parliament. He was defeated on 21 March 1896 and again in the elections in March 1899.
• He was a strong supporter of Australian federation.
• Left the ALP over its attitude to the Boer War in 1900. Following his election as an Independent Labor candidate to Australia’s first House of Representatives on 30 March 1901, as member for the seat of Moreton, he rejoined the party. He held the seat in 1903 as a Labor candidate but, following a redistribution, he was defeated on 12 December 1906.
• Elected an alderman on Ipswich City Council on 18 April 1914 and died in office, and was still conducting the Railway Times.
• Cause of death: cerebral haemorrhage and syncope.

Sources
Who’s Who in Australia 1906-1914; Courier Mail, (Brisbane) 12 January 1915; Duncan Bruce Waterson, Biographical register of the Queensland Parliament 1860-1929 (Sydney, 2001; P. to P.