James Lawrence Curran (15 April 1927 – 18 May 2005) was a NSW politician (Australia) from Gilgandra, NSW. He was a
Labor Party member of 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 ...
from 1980 to 1981, representing the electorate of
Castlereagh.
Early life
Curran was born in 1927 at
Gilgandra
Gilgandra is a country town in the Orana region of New South Wales, Australia, and services the surrounding agricultural area where wheat is grown extensively together with other cereal crops, and sheep and beef cattle are raised. Sitting at t ...
where his father, Gilbert Curran, had arrived in 1908 as a young man from Horsham, Vic, with his own parents, brothers and sisters. Gilbert Curran's father, Con Curran snr, had purchased Gilgandra's Royal Hotel in May 1908, and in early 1909 Gilbert purchased a block of land of 3,650 acres adjacent to the Marthaguy Creek, which had been subdivided from "Berida" station. Jim Curran and his brothers were raised on this farming property, named "Bundah", located sixteen kilometres (ten miles) west from Gilgandra township. He later attended boarding school at
St Stanislaus College
St Stanislaus College (often called Tullabeg College) was a Jesuit boys boarding school, novitiate and philosophy school, in Tullabeg, Rahan, County Offaly. St Carthage founded a monastery of 800 monks there in 595 before founding his monaster ...
in
Bathurst, and won a scholarship to attend Armidale Teachers College.
He was appointed as a teacher in mid 1947. He taught variously in
Moree,
Bourke and
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 ...
. He met fellow teacher June Duffy and they were married in Sydney in 1949. They had no children. After his father's death in February 1957, Curran resigned from the Department of Education effective 9 Sept 1957 and moved to Malaya with his wife where they both took up school teaching posts at a company-owned tin-mining town on the east coast. They enjoyed a stimulating three-year period among the expatriate community engaged by the mine owners and made many lifelong international friends.
In 1960, after three years in Malaya, Mr and Mrs Curran returned to Australia. Curran gave up teaching to live at Gilgandra. He bought out his brothers' share in the family property "Bundah" and farmed there from 1960/61.
[NSW Gov Gazette 29 Dec 1961, p.4099 (sheep brand registration)] He ran "Bundah" successfully as a mixed farm, growing wheat and raising sheep and beef cattle while his wife taught at Gilgandra primary school. He became heavily involved in the local farming community, serving as secretary and president of the
United Farmers and Woolgrowers Association in Gilgandra, and being an active member of several farming and breeding groups. He was also a farming commentator for the local
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
station for a period. In 1971, he returned to teaching, running the library at Gilgandra High School and later taking up a position as library adviser to the Western Area for the
Department of Education
An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...
. In this role he had a stint in England on a library research grant. His wife June also taught in the library at Gilgandra High School.
Political career
In 1977, Curran became the private secretary to the local MLA, Jack Renshaw, then the NSW Treasurer and who had formerly been the NSW Premier
1981 state election a redistribution severely hampered his chances of winning the up-coming full-term general election. The redistribution changed the face of the Castlereagh electorate. Areas of more traditionally ALP-voting towns such as Nyngan had been moved out of the Castlereagh electorate and a large area of traditionally National Party of Australia – NSW">National Country Party
The National Party of Australia, also known as The Nationals or The Nats, is an Australian political party. Traditionally representing graziers, farmers, and regional voters generally, it began as the Australian Country Party in 1920 at a fede ...
-voting territory had been moved inside the electorate boundaries, including a large section of the adjacent seat of Burrendong which had been abolished. The boundary changes meant that Castlereagh notionally became a National Country seat. Burrendong had been held for some years by National Country MLA Roger Wotton. With the benefit of both his own strong personal following and large areas of his former Burrendong electorate now within Castlereagh, Wotton contested Castlereagh against Curran. As predicted on the basis of the new boundaries, Wotton succeeded in winning the seat from Curran.
Curran remained involved in public life after his parliamentary defeat, while still living on and working his farm. In the 1980s he worked with NSW Trade in New York for two years as Manager of Industrial Promotion for New South Wales, and after his return to Australia he was later appointed as an Assistant Commissioner for Western Lands. Retired from full-time work for some years, and from his farming property, he died at Gilgandra in May 2005, survived by his wife, June.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Curran, Jim
1927 births
2005 deaths
Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly
Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of New South Wales
20th-century Australian politicians