Hugh de Largie

Hugh de Largie (24 March 1859 – 9 May 1947) was an Australian politician who served as a Senator for Western Australia from 1901 to 1922. He was initially a member of the Labor Party, but after the 1916 party split joined the National Labor Party and then the Nationalist Party.

Early life

He was born in Airdrie, Scotland on 24 March 1859. He was a son of coal miner Archibald Hamilton de Largie and his wife Mary, née McLaren, both of whom died while he was very young. De Largie, a devout Roman Catholic, left school in 1869, at the age of 10 years old to work in the Lanarkshire mines, where he became involved in the labour movement.

Union activism

De Largie married Mary McGregor in Glasgow in 1884 and they migrated first to Queensland in 1887 then to Newcastle in New South Wales where, in addition to mining, de Largie acted as a union delegate and secretary of the local branches of the Australian Socialist League and the Labor Electoral League. de Largie became first a member of the National Labor Party before joining the Nationalist Party of Australia.

Personal life De Largie was married twice. His first wife Mary McGregor, whom he married in Glasgow in 1884. After her death, on 8 January 1946, he married Elizabeth Jeannie Marie Renoua Renouard. He had four children, three girls and a boy.