Jack Beasley

John Albert Beasley (9 November 1895 – 2 September 1949) was an Australian politician who was a member of the House of Representatives from 1928 to 1946. He served in the Australian War Cabinet from 1941 to 1946, and was a government minister in the Curtin and Chifley governments. Beasley was a member of the Australian Labor Party, although on two occasions he left the party to join the breakaway Lang Labor groups, leading the faction in federal parliament. He concluded his career as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1946 until his death in 1949.

Early life Beasley was born on 9 November 1895 in Werribee, Victoria, the son of Catherine (née Hogan) and John Beasley. His mother was born in County Tipperary, Ireland, while his Australian-born father was a blacksmith and farmer. Beasley was educated at St Andrew's Catholic Primary School, but left at a young age to work on his father's farm. He later worked as a labourer in Tasmania and Adelaide, and then trained as an electrician in Port Augusta, South Australia, and Broken Hill, New South Wales. In 1918, Beasley moved to Sydney and found work at the Cockatoo Island Dockyard. He was employed by the Sydney Municipal Council in 1920, becoming an electrical installation inspector and then supervisor of appliance sales in the electricity department in 1926. On 5 February 1927, he married Alma Matilda Creighton at a Catholic church in Manly. The couple had two sons and two daughters together.

Early political involvement Beasley became involved in the labour movement as a shop steward for the Electrical Trades Union of Australia (ETU). He served as the union's president from 1924 to 1930, and was one of its delegates to the Labor Council of New South Wales, serving as president of the council from 1922 to 1928. Beasley was elected to the state executive of the Australian Labor Party in June 1923. Although initially sympathetic to communism and supportive of Jock Garden, he later moderated his views. He represented the ALP at the International Labour Conference in Switzerland in 1926, and returned to Australia "appalled at the excesses of Italian fascism and disconcerted by the realities of Russian communism". He served as High Commissioner until his sudden death in September 1949 on a visit to Sydney at St Vincent's Hospital, Darlinghurst.