John Lloyd (Jack) Price (14 February 1882 – 23 April 1941) was an Australian politician and trade unionist. He was an

Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also known as the Labor Party or simply Labor, is the major Centre-left politics, centre-left List of political parties in Australia, political party in Australia and one of two Major party, major parties in Po ...

member of the

South Australian House of Assembly The House of Assembly (also known as the lower house) is one of two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia, the other being the Legislative Council. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Adelaide. Overview The House of Assem ...

for

Port Adelaide Port Adelaide is a port-side region of Adelaide, approximately northwest of the Adelaide city centre, Adelaide CBD. It is also the namesake of the City of Port Adelaide Enfield council, a suburb, a federal and state electoral division and is t ...

from 1915 to 1925. He later served in the

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

for Boothby from 1928 until his death in 1941, but left the Labor Party and joined 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 Elections in Australia, federal elections in that time, usually governing Coalition (Australia), in coalition ...

, following the 1931 Labor split over government responses to the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

Early life and professional career

Price was born in Everton in

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

, England, the son of

Thomas Price Thomas Price may refer to: *Thomas Price (South Australian politician) (1852–1909), Premier of South Australia *Thomas Price (bishop) (1599–1685), Church of Ireland archbishop of Cashel *Thomas Price (Carnhuanawc) (1787–1848), Welsh literary ...

, the future first Labor

Premier of South Australia The premier of South Australia is the head of government in the state of South Australia, Australia. The Government of South Australia follows the Westminster system, with a Parliament of South Australia acting as the legislature. The premier i ...

, and his wife Anne Elizabeth (née Lloyd). His family migrated to

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

in March 1883 and settled at Hawthorn, where Price was educated at Mitcham Public School, Unley Public School, the Adelaide Business College and the South Australian School of Mines. He worked in the clerical branch of the state railways from June 1898 until his election to the House of Assembly in 1915. He volunteered for service in World War I along with several brothers, but was rejected. He was secretary of the Railway Officers' Association and the state branch of the Federated Masters' and Engineers' Association, president of the South Australian Government General Workers' Association and the Port Adelaide Trades and Labour Council, and later president of the United Trades and Labour Council and state president of the Labor Party. He was both a councillor and alderman of the

City of Port Adelaide The City of Port Adelaide was a local government area of South Australia centred at the port of Adelaide from 1855 to 1996. Early years The council was established on 27 December 1855 when the Corporate Town of Port Adelaide was proclaimed as a ...

, serving from 1916 to 1924, and was president of the Largs Bay Progressive Association.

State politics

Price was elected to the

at the 1915 state election for the safe Labor seat of

. He remained with the Labor Party in the 1917 Labor split, after which he became secretary to the parliamentary Labor Party and Opposition Whip. He was Government Whip in the government of John Gunn from 1924 to 1925. In March 1925, he was appointed to a three-year term as Agent-General in London by the Gunn government; he had previously been tipped as a potential minister. His resignation necessitated a 1925 by-election in Port Adelaide, which was won by Labor candidate John Stanley Verran.

Federal politics

In 1928, he was elected to the

as the Labor member for Boothby, defeating sitting

Nationalist Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...

Jack Duncan-Hughes John Grant "Jack" Duncan-Hughes (1 September 1882 – 13 August 1962) was an Australian politician. He was a member of the Australian House of Representatives for Boothby from 1922 to 1928, of the Australian Senate for South Australia fr ...

. He was secretary to the parliamentary Labor Party from 1929, but left the Labor Party in the 1931 Labor split, in which several Labor MPs merged with the Nationalists to form the

under the leadership of

Joseph Lyons Joseph Aloysius Lyons (15 September 1879 – 7 April 1939) was an Australian politician who served as the tenth prime minister of Australia, from 1932 until his death in 1939. He held office as the inaugural leader of the United Australia Par ...

. He later served as secretary to the parliamentary United Australia Party and Government Whip from 1940 until his death. He died in office in 1941 at the age of 59; he had "not been in robust health" for two years, but his death was sudden and unexpected. His death raised serious concerns that the

Menzies Menzies is a Scottish surname, with Gaelic forms being Méinnearach and Méinn, and other variant forms being Menigees, Mennes, Mengzes, Menzeys, Mengies, and Minges. Derivation and history The name and its Gaelic form are probably derived f ...

government could fall if his seat were lost in a by-election. However, UAP candidate Grenfell Price held the seat in the resulting by-election, although the government subsequently fell in August anyway.

References

, - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Price, John Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Australia United Australia Party members of the Parliament of Australia Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Boothby Members of the Australian House of Representatives 1882 births 1941 deaths British emigrants to Australia Australian MPs 1928–1929 Australian MPs 1929–1931 Australian MPs 1931–1934 Australian MPs 1934–1937 Australian MPs 1937–1940 Australian MPs 1940–1943