![Beasley Kearney](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Beasley_Kearney.jpg)
Beasley James Kearney (2 December 1891 – 11 October 1972) was an Australian politician who represented the
South Australian House of Assembly
The House of Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. The other is the Legislative Council. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Adelaide.
Overview
The House of Assembly was creat ...
multi-member
An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections ma ...
seat of
East Torrens
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...
from 1930 to 1933. Elected for the
Labor Party, he was expelled in the
1931 Labor split, but was readmitted to the party in 1932.
Kearney was born at
Wilmington, South Australia
Wilmington is a town and locality in the Yorke and Mid North region of South Australia.The town is located in the District Council of Mount Remarkable local government area, north of the state capital, Adelaide. At the 2016 census, the localit ...
, and was educated at country schools. He became a blacksmith, then joined the
South Australian Railways
South Australian Railways (SAR) was the statutory corporation through which the Government of South Australia built and operated railways in South Australia from 1854 until March 1978, when its non-urban railways were incorporated into Austr ...
, where he initially worked as a railway porter. He passed the railway clerical examination and went on to work in the railways' clerical branch, before transferring to the State Children's Department, where he was appointed chief prosecuting officer in 1918. He studied law at the
University of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...
while working with the department, resigning after six years in order to undertake his articles as a solicitor and then being admitted to the bar.
He also played
Australian rules football
Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...
for Norwood.
Having become a prominent solicitor in
Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
, Kearney was elected to the House of Assembly at the
1930 election. Although tipped as a potential
Attorney-General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general.
In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
, he was not appointed to the ministry.
Kearney was one of 23 Labor MPs expelled from the party at its June 1931 conference in the
1931 Labor split. In December, he individually appealed against his expulsion, resulting in a special state conference to decide on his case, which rejected the appeal. However, in June 1932, after a further appeal, the federal executive of the party ordered Kearney and
Albert Thompson readmitted to the party. He recontested his seat for official Labor at the
April 1933 election, but was defeated.
In July 1933, he was struck off the roll of legal practitioners over allegations that he had fraudulently taken a large sum of money from a client in a deceased estate case. In August 1933, he was convicted and jailed for three years with hard labour after pleading guilty to separate fraud charges involving a total of £1,591.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kearney, Beasley
1891 births
1972 deaths
Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of South Australia
Members of the South Australian House of Assembly
Australian politicians convicted of fraud
20th-century Australian politicians