James Sinclair Taylor MCGOWEN

MCGOWEN, JAMES SINCLAIR TAYLOR (b. at sea, 16 Aug 1855; d. Sydney, NSW, 7 April 1922). Trade unionist, politician and Anglican churchman.

Born aboard the ship Western Bride bound from England to Australia, the three-week-old J S T McGowen landed in Melbourne with his migrant parents (James and Eliza, née Ditchfield, McGowen) in early Sept 1855. His father was employed as a bridge-worker by the Victorian government before moving to NSW, probably in 1866/67. McGowen joined his father in bridge work until, sometime in 1867/68, the family finally settled in Sydney, where the younger McGowen briefly attended Anglican and state schools. In 1870, he was apprenticed as a boilermaker to P N Russell & Coy where he worked until the eight-hour strike in 1873. He then took a job with Atlas Engineering and joined the United Society of Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders of NSW on its foundation in 1873. McGowen subsequently worked as a boilermaker at Fitzroy Dock and then, from 1875-91, joined the Railways Department at the Eveleigh Workshops.

McGowen served first as assistant secretary and then as secretary of his union from 1874-82. Thereafter, he was elected president (1883-4), secretary a second time (1884-6), president again (1887-8), and secretary a third time (1888-89). The Boilermakers also made him a trustee (1887-91) and a member of the society's executive committee (1876-90). He was also elected to be a Boilermaker's delegate to the Second Intercolonial Trades' Union Congress in Melbourne in 1884, and to serve on the Sydney Eight Hour Committee (1881-91; president, 1888-91) and the Sydney Trades and Labor Council (1884-91; executive committee, 1888-91). McGowen also was his union's representative on the Trades Hall Building Committee (1884-8), and a driving force in the Hall's construction. In addition, beginning in 1880, he represented the Boilermakers Society on numerous government committees which dealt with working conditions, the training of boilermakers and social reform.

McGowen married Emily Towner (18541922), a devout Christian, on 18 April 1878, and they settled in Redfern. They had nine children: Ernest Edwin, Charles Frederick, James Sinclair, Alfred, Emily Eliza, Millicent Mary, Joseph Henry, Stanley Redfern, and Frank Noel. Alfred died in infancy and Frank was killed at Gallipoli in 1915. As a young man, the six-feet tall, 200-pound McGowen was an award-winning cricketer who helped organise district competition in Sydney which replaced the older, more exclusive urban clubs. As he grew older, he became an avid lawn bowler.

Also as a young man, McGowen became active in the Scottish Rite Manoah Lodge and St Paul's Church of England in Redfern. Presbyterian and Methodist, respectively, by background, Jim and Emily McGowen began attending St Paul's Church regularly in 1877 and remained faithful members the rest of their lives. Under the evangelical tutelage first of the Rev Canon Alfred Hamilton Hewlett Stephen (187784) and later the Rev Francis Bertie Boyce (q.v.), McGowen became heavily involved in the life of the church: sidesman, church warden, member of the Parochial Council and the auditing committee for the church's account books, Parochial Nominator, and president of St Paul's School, Redfern. Most important, he served faithfully as Sunday school superintendent for more than 35 years, from 1887 until shortly before his death in 1922.

McGowen sat under Boyce's socially sensitive evangelical preaching for more than 38 years. McGowen, who did not use profanity and was a teetotaller, supported Boyce's temperance stands on local option and early closing. McGowen and Boyce also worked together to promote women's suffrage and to establish old-age pensions as well as to care for the poor in Redfern. Most important for McGowen, Boyce provided constant positive reinforcement for what became Labor Party policies in the state parliament.

By the 1890s, McGowen was well-known and well-respected in Redfern, and in both working-class and church circles in Sydney. Commonly known as 'Honest Jim', he was a foundation member of the Labor Party of NSW in 1891. Capturing the seat of Redfern with the support of his mates from the railway workshops, he was one of 35 Labor candidates elected to the NSW Legislative Assembly in that year. McGowen served as MLA for Redfern from 17 June 1891 to 21 Feb 1917, and as MLC from 6 May 1917 to 7 April 1922. His determination and nerve proved invaluable in parliament in 1891-4, when the party split twice over the question of protectionism, and discipline was almost lost. Of all the first Labor parliamentarians, only McGowen clearly placed Labor ahead of the fiscal issue. His unwavering adherence to the party platform and his resolve to support caucus decisions led to his unanimous selection in 1894 as the new party leader, a position he held until 1913.

With a firm commitment to party principles and with the help of other young Labor leaders such as J C Watson, Billy Hughes and W A Holman, McGowen gradually moulded the Labor parliamentarians into a disciplined voting unit. McGowen and his colleagues favoured federation, and in 1897 Labor fielded a list of 10 candidates for the Federal Convention. All lost, with McGowen polling best. McGowen also narrowly lost a bid for the federal seat of South Sydney in the first national election of 1901. In the state Legislative Assembly, he served on the important Public Works Committee (1901-4) and the State Children Relief Board (1900-8), while gradually making Labor the official opposition in NSW.

McGowen's steady leadership was an important factor in Labor's winning 46 of 90 seats in the Legislative Assembly in the election of Oct 1910. He became the first Labor premier in the history of NSW when he was sworn into office on 21 Oct, a position he held until 29 June 1913, when he was replaced by his Labor colleague W A Holman. McGowen also held the Treasury portfolio (1910-11), and was Colonial Secretary (1911-13) and Minister for Labour and Industry (1913-14) during the McGowen and Holman governments.

McGowen's administration was cautious but progressive. However, he did not move fast enough to satisfy some of his impatient younger associates. Therefore, when he mishandled a gasworkers' strike in 1913, he was replaced as premier and party leader by Holman. Perhaps the personal highlight of McGowen's premiership was his selection to be a member of the Australian parliamentary delegation to attend the coronation of George V in London in 1911.

McGowen's political ideals were founded on his experiences as a worker and union leader and on the teachings of Jesus Christ. In numerous speeches, he declared that Jesus the Nazarene Carpenter was his role model and that his teachings were the foundation of his view that government could and should make society more humane. Jim McGowen revered the Bible, Jesus and human life.

He also revered the Australian tie with Britain, and supported Australia's involvement in World War One. With three sons in the AIF and with one wounded and one killed in the war, McGowen could not support Labor's stand against conscription in 1917. Consequently, he was denied party endorsement, ran for his old Redfern seat as an Independent Labor candidate, and lost. This defeat effectively ended McGowen's political career.

McGowen died of heart failure on 7 April 1922, only months after resigning the last of his political and church offices because of declining health. He was buried in the Anglican section of the Rookwood Cemetery, Sydney. His wife followed him in death the next month, on 23 May 1922, and was laid to rest beside him.

ADB 10; G Freudenberg, Cause for Power (Leichhardt, NSW, 1991); R D Linder, "'Honest Jim" McGowen (1855-1922) as a Christian in Politics', Lucas, 15 (June 1993), 44-59; D M Moore, 'McGowen, the Boilermakers' Society, and the Birth of the Labor Party' (Sydney Univ MA Thesis, 1974); N B Nairn, Civilising Capitalism (Cambridge, 1973)

ROBERT D LINDER