James Johnston (1854 – 31 December 1930) was an English-born Australian politician. He was born in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

to labourer Andrew Johnston and Anna Patterson. The family moved to

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

in 1857 and he attended Balmain State School. After leaving school he was apprentice to a boilermaker, eventually becoming a journeying boilermaker himself. On 22 September 1877 he married Sarah Fuller, with whom he had eight children. A committed

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

ist, he helped to form the Boilermakers' Society and the Queensland branch of the Federated Seamen's Movement. On returning to Sydney he became president of the Boilermakers' Society. In 1891 he was elected to the

New South Wales Legislative Assembly The New South Wales Legislative Assembly is the lower of the two houses of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The upper house is the New South Wales Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament Ho ...

for Balmain, representing the newly formed Labor Party. On refusing to sign the pledge, he became a

Protectionist Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulations. ...

, but he was defeated in 1894. Johnston died in

in 1930.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnston, James 1854 births 1930 deaths Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of New South Wales Protectionist Party politicians British emigrants to the Colony of New South Wales