Charles Lamp

Charles Adcock Lamp (3 September 1895 – 17 April 1972) was an Australian politician and trade unionist. He was a Senator for Tasmania from 1938 to 1950, representing the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He also served terms as the party's state secretary and state president in Tasmania and was state president of the Australian Railways Union.

Early life Lamp was born on 3 September 1895 in Hobart, Tasmania. He was the son of Rosina and John Frederick August Lamp. His paternal grandfather was a German seaman who jumped ship in South Australia and later made his way to Tasmania.

Lamp attended a state school in Queenstown on Tasmania's West Coast. He initially trained as a cabinetmaker after leaving school, later taking up an apprenticeship with Gurr and Sons, a Launceston shipbuilding firm. He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in January 1916, joining the 9th Field Company of the Australian Engineers. He saw active service in France, but was repatriated to England after being wounded in June 1918 and returned to Australia the following year.

After his military service, Lamp joined the Tasmanian Government Railways. He was an officeholder in the Australian Railways Union (ARU), initially as secretary of its locomotive section and later as state president; he also served a term as president of the Launceston Trades Hall Council. Lamp established the influential ARU Gazette in 1928.

Personal life In 1921, Lamp married Mary Evangelist Ahearn, with whom he had three children. His son John was killed in World War II. He was widowed in 1966 and remarried in 1968 to May McDonald, whose father James McDonald had been a Tasmanian state MP.

Lamp died in Launceston on 17 April 1972, aged 76.