Labour Australia

John Hugh Harris (1889-1965) miner, alderman 

Birth: 18 August 1889 at Charters Towers, Queensland, eldest child of English-born John Harris, miner, and Scottish-born Christina, née Wilson. Marriage: 11 December 1912 at Broken Hill, New South Wales, to Blanche Ruth Aldrich. They had nine sons and five daughters. Death: 26 June 1965 in Broken Hill Hospital. 

• To Broken Hill 1911. Was a miner at North Mine.
• Involved in strike of 1919-20. President 1931-xx and 1934-19xx and vice-president Workers’ Industrial Union of Australasia, Barrier district of federation & member, Federation Central Council. President Barrier Social Democratic Club.
• 1935 was elected as representative of WIU of A to visit Russia for six weeks at invitation of the Friends of the Soviet Union. To defray expenses of the trip, and provide for his wife and family, union members paid levy of one shilling. He arrived back in July to a civic reception, a stone heavier, with a glowing report of conditions there and ominous observations on militarism in Germany. In Russia he met former Broken Hill resident Dido Miller.
• A long member of the Australian Labor Party, and representative of its district assembly at the 1923 and 1928 Easter conferences in Sydney, Harris was a Labor alderman on Broken Hill City Council from 1931 to 1934 and from 1937 to 1947, and sometime citizens’ representative on the Water Board.
• 1947 elected to Broken Hill hospital board.
• Needed compensation from c.1951 to death.
• Died of stomach cancer.

Sources
Common Cause, 10 July 1965, p 14