James "Jim" McGirr, JP (6 February 1890 – 27 October 1957) was the
Labor
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the la ...
Premier of New South Wales
The premier of New South Wales is the head of government in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The Government of New South Wales follows the Westminster Parliamentary System, with a Parliament of New South Wales acting as the legislature. ...
from 6 February 1947 to 3 April 1952.
A Catholic, McGirr was the seventh son of John Patrick McGirr, farmer and Irish immigrant, and Mary McGirr, whose maiden name was O'Sullivan. Born in
Parkes Parkes may refer to:
* Sir Henry Parkes (1815–1896), Australian politician, one of the earliest and most prominent advocates for Australian federation
Named for Henry Parkes
* Parkes, New South Wales, a regional town
* Parkes Observatory, a radi ...
,
New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
, he grew up on a dairy farm near that town. Educated mostly 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 monaste ...
, Bathurst, he was later apprenticed to his brother
Greg McGirr
John Joseph Gregory McGirr (11 October 1879 – 23 March 1949) was an Australian politician who served in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from 1913 to 1925, representing the Australian Labor Party, Labor Party. He served as the party's ...
, a pharmacist at Parkes. He soon forfeited his apprenticeship to work in stockyards for a while, but had to give up that work when he was thrown from a horse and seriously injured.
Subsequently, he resumed his apprenticeship and attended the
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...
Pitt Street
Pitt Street is a major street in the Sydney central business district in New South Wales, Australia. The street runs through the entire city centre from Circular Quay in the north to Waterloo, although today's street is in two disjointed sec ...
, he later opened a pharmacy in Parkes, specialising in veterinarians' prescriptions. Later still, he operated pharmacies in partnership with his brother in two Sydney suburbs:
Marrickville
Marrickville is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Marrickville is located south-west of the Sydney central business district and is the largest suburb in the Inner West Council local gove ...
Patrick Patrick may refer to:
* Patrick (given name), list of people and fictional characters with this name
* Patrick (surname), list of people with this name
People
* Saint Patrick (c. 385–c. 461), Christian saint
*Gilla Pátraic (died 1084), Patrick ...
into ALP politics and joined the Parkes branch of the party in 1906. In 1922, Greg vacated his seat as a member of the Legislative Assembly for
Cootamundra
Cootamundra, nicknamed Coota, is a town in the South West Slopes region of New South Wales, Australia and within the Riverina. It is within the Cootamundra-Gundagai Regional Council. At the 2016 Census, Cootamundra had a population of 6,782. ...
, and stood successfully for a
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 ...
electorate. He managed to get Jim endorsement on the party ticket for Cootamundra and he was duly elected. Due to local party opposition in 1925, he was obliged to find another seat in 1925; and he successfully contested
Cumberland
Cumberland ( ) is a historic county in the far North West England. It covers part of the Lake District as well as the north Pennines and Solway Firth coast. Cumberland had an administrative function from the 12th century until 1974. From 19 ...
in western
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 1927,
proportional representation
Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...
was abandoned and Cumberland was abolished. He then stood for
Bankstown
Bankstown is a suburb south west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is 16 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is located in the local government area of the City of Canterbury-Bankstown, hav ...
, which he held until 1950. From 1950 to 1952 he was the member for another western Sydney constituency, namely,
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 ...
.
When the Lang Government came to power, McGirr became Minister for Health from November 1930 to June 1931. He was Minister for Local Government from June 1931 to May 1932 and became Minister for Transport in March 1932. On 13 May 1932, the Governor Sir Philip Game dismissed Lang and installed Bertram Stevens as Premier. The
United Australia Party
The United Australia Party (UAP) was an Australian political party that was founded in 1931 and dissolved in 1945. The party won four federal elections in that time, usually governing in coalition with the Country Party. It provided two prim ...
(UAP) won the subsequent election.
In October 1932 McGirr married Valerie Cecilia Armstrong. Lang continued to lead the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party, which had effectively seceded from the Federal Labor Party, when Lang's supporters sided with the UAP to bring down the Scullin Labor Government in November 1931. McGirr continued to be a loyal supporter of Lang throughout the 1930s, even though Lang Labor did not win any elections. When Lang left the party to found the Australian Labor Party (Non-Communist) in April 1940, McGirr and six other parliamentarians followed him. However, they returned to the Labor Party before the May 1941 election that brought
William McKell
Sir William John McKell (26 September 1891 – 11 January 1985) was an Australian politician who served as the 12th Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1947 to 1953. He had previously been Premier of New South Wales from 1941 to 1947 ...
's government to power.
McGirr became Minister for Local Government and Housing in the new Government, the only one of the ex-Langite faction appointed to Cabinet. He failed to make significant progress on local government amalgamation; but he did establish the Housing Commission of New South Wales, which became an important state body dealing with the post-
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 ...
and post- Depression housing shortage. As a result, he was given sole responsibility for housing in 1944.
Premiership
In 1947,
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
Ben Chifley
Joseph Benedict Chifley (; 22 September 1885 – 13 June 1951) was an Australian politician who served as the 16th prime minister of Australia from 1945 to 1949. He held office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1945, follow ...
named McKell as
Governor-General of Australia
The governor-general of Australia is the representative of the monarch, currently King Charles III, in Australia.Bob Heffron (supported by the Party Executive, McKell, many urban members, and many radical members) and, on the other side, McGirr (supported mainly by ex-Langite, rural and Catholic members). Eventually McGirr won by just two votes. He became Premier on his 57th birthday.
Decent, humane, well-liked, and personally free from corruption, McGirr as Premier was nevertheless a great procrastinator, and delayed many proposals. Even after the ALP won the 1947 state election, McGirr proved unable to increase significantly the representation of his supporters in the Cabinet as a whole.
An ambitious public works program, which McGirr had promised in the 1947 campaign, was disrupted by post-war shortages and strikes. He also publicly threatened to resign because the party organisation had disendorsed four members of the Legislative Assembly for failing to follow the party's dictates in a vote for the
Upper House
An upper house is one of two Debate chamber, chambers of a bicameralism, bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the lower house.''Bicameralism'' (1997) by George Tsebelis The house formally designated as the upper house is usually smalle ...
. Subsequently, though, he withdrew his resignation threat, leaving him looking weak.
The 1950 election produced so big an anti-ALP swing that it left the government depending for its survival upon the votes of two of the disendorsed members, who had won their seats as independents. Consequently, McGirr had to deal with the independents as well as a cabinet full of factional opponents. On 2 April 1952, he resigned from the Premiership;
Joseph Cahill
John Joseph Cahill (21 January 189122 October 1959), also known as Joe Cahill or J. J. Cahill, was a long-serving New South Wales politician, railway worker, trade unionist and Labor Party Premier of New South Wales from 1952 to his death in 1 ...
succeeded him. He afterwards took up a controversial appointment as Chairman of the Maritime Services Board.A state-owned enterprise then responsible for port services.
McGirr died of a
coronary occlusion
A coronary occlusion is the partial or complete obstruction of blood flow in a coronary artery. This condition may cause a heart attack.
In some patients coronary occlusion causes only mild pain, tightness or vague discomfort which may be ignored ...
at
Homebush
Homebush is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located 12 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the Local government in Australia, local government area of the Municipali ...
, inner-western Sydney, survived by his wife Valerie Cecilia, daughter Margaret and two sons - Patrick and James. His niece Trixie Gardner became a Conservative politician in the United Kingdom and is the only Australian woman made a
life peer
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...
ess of the UK parliament, as Baroness Gardner of Parkes.