William George Mahony (1877 – 28 August 1962) was an Australian politician. Born in Ireland, Mahony migrated to Australia as a child. He was raised in Balmain, where he received a primary education before becoming a grocer's assistant. He was the first secretary of the Grocers' Assistants' Union, and was involved in its amalgamation into the Shop Assistants' Union. In the

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

that resulted from the death of Robert Howe in 1915, Mahony was elected unopposed to the

Australian House of Representatives The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia. The term of members of the ...

as 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 labour ...

member for Dalley. He held the seat until 1927, when he resigned and was succeeded by the former

Premier of Queensland The premier of Queensland is the head of government in the Australian state of Queensland. By convention the premier is the leader of the party with a parliamentary majority in the unicameral Legislative Assembly of Queensland. The premier is ap ...

Ted Theodore Edward Granville Theodore (29 December 1884 – 9 February 1950) was an Australian politician who served as Premier of Queensland from 1919 to 1925, as leader of the state Labor Party. He later entered federal politics, serving as Treasurer in ...

. Following his resignation, he purchased a sub-lease of the Commercial Hotel at Balmain East in June 1927, but sold it again in November. A 1928 Royal Commission found that Mahony had been bribed to resign from the

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

, probably by or for Theodore, but proof was never found. Mahony had emphatically denied the allegations, and claimed that he had won the money gambling on horse-racing. He attempted to make a comeback at the 1928 federal election, but was defeated for Labor preselection to contest a New South Wales seat in the

Australian Senate The Senate is the upper house of the Bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives (Australia), House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Chapter ...

. In 1929, Mahony was working as a casual assistant in the ambulance room at the

Cockatoo Island Dockyard The Cockatoo Island Dockyard was a major dockyard in Sydney, Australia, based on Cockatoo Island. The dockyard was established in 1857 to maintain Royal Navy warships. It later built and repaired military and battle ships, and played a key role ...

. In the 1940s, Mahony was the industrial organiser for the

Australian Red Cross The Australian Red Cross, formally the Australian Red Cross Society, is a humanitarian aid and community services charity in Australia. Tracing its history back to 1923 and being incorporated by royal charter in 1941, the Australian Red Cros ...

. His wife, Annie, died in 1942; their only son John died at 36 in 1946, and their daughter Amy in 1948. Mahony died in 1962. His brother,

Robert Mahony Robert Mahony (3 October 1872 – 8 February 1961) was an Irish-born Australian politician. He was born in Cork to shipwright William Mahony and Bridget Manning. The family migrated to Sydney in 1877 and Robert was educated at a Balmain conve ...

, was a member of the

New South Wales Legislative Council The New South Wales Legislative Council, often referred to as the upper house, is one of the two chambers of the parliament of the Australian state of New South Wales. The other is the Legislative Assembly. Both sit at Parliament House in th ...

References

Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Australia Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Dalley Members of the Australian House of Representatives 1877 births 1962 deaths 20th-century Australian politicians 19th-century Australian politicians Irish emigrants to Australia (before 1923) {{Australia-Labor-representative-stub