John (Jack) Melloy (10 November 19086 January 2006) was a member of the

Legislative Assembly of Queensland The Legislative Assembly of Queensland is the sole chamber of the unicameral Parliament of Queensland established under the Constitution of Queensland. Elections are held every four years and are done by full preferential voting. The Assembl ...

for the

Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms the f ...

Personal life

Jack Melloy was born in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

, the youngest of six children of Charles Frederick Melloy and Ada Louise Crampton.Queensland Registrar-General: Index of Births, Deaths and Marriages Unlike his older siblings, Jack (formally John) had no middle name, which irritated him, so he sometimes called himself John Joseph Patrick Melloy. Jack grew up in a rented house at Kangaroo Point on the banks of the Brisbane River. His father, having sailed the seven seas (or at least one or two them) after leaving his family home in Liverpool, England at the age of 14, worked on boats sailing up and down the river. Jack was a Naval Cadet at an early age, but led the life of a landlubber in later times. He married Elizabeth Maude Garner (b. 1910 in Charters Towers, Queensland) on 24 June 1933. They had seven children: John Douglas, Elaine Elizabeth ( Elaine), Lynette Anne, Carol Netta, Noela Meryl, Geoffrey Francis, and Christine Louise."Obituary: Labor man devoted 80 years to party", Brisbane Courier-Mail, Monday 9 January 2006 Jack Melloy died at Redcliffe (north of Brisbane) in 2006, aged 97. His wife Elizabeth had died in 1995. The couple were survived by their 7 children, 50 grandchildren and numerous great-grandchildren.

Business life

Jack Melloy was a dental technician. He was President and secretary of the Dental Technicians Association of Queensland. He served as the union representative on various dental committees. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he was a Staff Sergeant for the Australian Army Dental Corps from 1942 to 1946. From 1951 to 1952 he was organizer and industrial advocate for the

Federated Miscellaneous Workers' Union The Federated Miscellaneous Workers' Union (F.M.W.U.), commonly known as the 'Missos', was an Australian trade union which existed between 1915 and 1992. It represented an extremely diverse and disparate range of occupations, but its core support ...

. Prior to his election to parliament in 1960, he was working as an Air Cargo Officer at the Brisbane Airport. He had also done some part-time work as a Bookie's Clerk at the main Brisbane race venues (no doubt to help feed his 7 hungry children - all of them voracious eaters.)

Politics

Jack Melloy joined the Labor Party in 1922 at the age of 14. His interest in socialist politics was influenced by his mother's trade unionist cousin

Walter Russell Crampton Walter Russell (Jack) Crampton (3 July 1877 – 20 October 1938) was an Australian trade unionist, journalist and politician. He was a Member of the Queensland Legislative Council, until he voted (with others) to abolish the Council. Personal l ...

, who famously did himself out of a job by voting in favour of the abolition the Queensland Legislative Council (the upper house of parliament), of which he was a member. Jack Melloy first ran for public office in 1949 as a Labor candidate for Buranda in Brisbane City Council elections but was unsuccessful. He stood for the federal electorate of Lilley in 1955 and 1958 but was unsuccessful both times. In 1960 he was the Labor candidate in the Queensland electorate of Nudgee (defeating

Frank Sleeman Frank Northey Sleeman (4 March 1915 – 1 August 2000) was Lord Mayor of Brisbane from 1976 to 1982. Early life and education Sleeman grew up in Redfern, Sydney. He attended Canterbury Boys' High School. Military service and prisoner of war Sl ...

, who was later Brisbane's Lord Mayor) and was elected to the

. He remained as Member for Nudgee until his retirement in 1977. He was Shadow Minister for Health from 1967 to 1972, where his background as a dental technician made him passionate about the state's lack of dental services and the poor health system generally. He also served as shadow minister for Health, Police, and Aboriginal Affairs, for some time starting round about 1975. In 1974 Melloy was elected deputy leader of the State Labor Party, defeating Keith Wright and

Jack Houston John William Houston (30 December 1919 – 27 October 2008) was an Australian politician. He was the Australian Labor Party (Queensland Branch), Labor member for Electoral district of Bulimba, Bulimba in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland f ...

. He remained deputy leader until 1976.The Melloy family - a Labor tradition
, Queensland Labor Times, accessed 18 Oct 2009. He championed the safari suit (a short-sleeved jacket worn without a shirt designed for wear in warm climates) by wearing one in Parliament but was told to leave and jokingly derided as a bagman and a

hippy A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

. He retired in 1977, but continued his political activities through assisting his politically active family in their campaigns. In 1980 his daughter

Elaine Darling Elaine Elizabeth Darling (''née'' Melloy; 6 June 1936 – 30 August 2019) was an Australian politician. The Labor member for Lilley from 1980 to 1993, she was the first woman from Queensland to be elected to the House of Representatives. Earl ...

won the seat of Lilley (the one he had unsuccessfully contested twice in the 1950s). His granddaughter

Vicky Darling Vicky Elizabeth Darling (born 29 November 1966 in Brisbane, Australia) is a Labor politician elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly in September 2006 as the member for Sandgate. Darling was preselected by the Labor Party in 2006 She r ...

won the state seat of Sandgate in 2006. Some other family members served in executive positions of branches of the Labor Party. In 1989 his daughter Noela Pemberton was the Labor candidate in the State electorate of Aspley being defeated by about 400 votes, after outpolling a sitting National Party State Government Minister and a Liberal Party Local Government Councillor on the primary vote. The Local Government councillor won the seat after the distribution of preferences. In 2000 his daughters Elaine Darling and Lyn Kally became local government Councillors in Queensland - Elaine in

Caloundra Caloundra ( ) is a coastal town and the southernmost town in the Sunshine Coast Region in South East Queensland, Australia. Geography Caloundra is north of the Brisbane central business district. Caloundra is accessible from Landsborough ra ...

, and Lyn in Esk Shire. Jack Melloy was awarded life membership of the Australian Labor Party in 1984. At age 95, he was still handing out how-to-vote cards on election day, loyal to his party. He served his party for over 80 years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Melloy, Jack 1908 births 2006 deaths Members of the Queensland Legislative Assembly Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Queensland 20th-century Australian politicians