John Thomas Lang (1876 - 1975)

Born 21 Dec 1876 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Husband of Hilda Amelia (Bredt) Lang — married 1896 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Descendants

Died 27 Sep 1975 at age 98 in Auburn, New South Wales, Australia

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Biography

Jack Lang is Notable.

Jack Lang

John Thomas 'Jack' Lang was born on 21st December 1876 at George Street, Brickfield Hill, New South Wales, Australia. He was the third son and sixth of ten children of James Henry Lang, a watchmaker from Scotland, and Mary Whelan, a milliner from Ireland.^[1] His parents had met and married in Melbourne, Victoria, and then moved to Sydney. His father adopted Mary's Roman Catholic faith. The family lived in the inner-city slum regions for the majority of Lang's early childhood, where he attended St Francis Marist Brothers' on Castlereagh Street, Sydney. In the mid-1880s, due to his parents' poverty, he was sent to live with his mother's sister on a small rural property near Bairnsdale, in the Gippsland region of Victoria, attending for about four years the local Catholic school.^[2]

At the age of nineteen years, Jack married Hilda Bredt (1878–1964), the seventeen-year-old daughter of prominent feminist and socialist Bertha Bredt, and the step-daughter of W H McNamara, who owned a bookshop in Castlereagh Street.^[3] Hilda's sister, also named Bertha, was married to the author and poet, Henry Lawson.^[2]

During the banking crash of the 1890s which devastated Australia, Lang became interested in politics, frequenting radical bookshops and helping with newspapers and publications of the infant Labor Party (ALP), which contested its first election in New South Wales in 1891. Around 1900 he became the manager of a real estate firm in the then semi-rural suburb of Auburn. He was so successful that he soon set up his own real estate business in an area much in demand by working-class families looking to escape the squalor and overcrowding of the inner-city slums. Lang was elected as an alderman to the new Municipality of Auburn April 1907, and served two terms as Mayor of Auburn in 1909–1911. He was elected as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1913 for the district of Granville. His financial skills led him to become treasurer in premier John Storey's Labor government from 1920 to 1922.^[2]

After the ALP lost government in 1922, Lang was elected by his Labor peers as party leader and, therefore, Opposition Leader. He led the ALP to victory in the 1925 NSW general election and became Premier of New South Wales. During his first term as premier, Lang carried out many social programmes, including state pensions for widowed mothers with dependent children under fourteen, a universal and mandatory system of workers' compensation for death, illness and injury incurred on the job, funded by premiums levied on employers, the abolition of student fees in state-run high schools and the introduction of various welfare schemes such as child endowment. His government also carried out road improvements, including paving much of the Hume Highway and the Great Western Highway. His attempts to copy the Queensland govenment to abolish the life-appointed upper house of the NSW parliament, the Legislative Council, were unsuccessful. After Labor's defeat at the 1927 election, Lang was Opposition Leader again from 1927 to October 1930. After New South Wales returned to single-member electorates, Lang was elected as the member for Auburn, a seat he held until he left state politics in 1946. In this period the Great Depression in Australia had begun in earnest with devastating effects on the nation's welfare and security.^[4]

In 1930, more than one in five adult males in New South Wales was without a job. As premier once more, Lang refused to cut government salaries and spending, a stand which was popular with his constituents, but which made the state's fiscal position more parlous. On 19th March 1932, Lang opened the Sydney Harbour Bridge; in doing so causing some controversy when he insisted on officially opening the bridge himself, rather than allowing the Governor to do so. Just as Lang was about to cut the ribbon to open the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Captain Francis de Groot, a member of the paramilitary New Guard movement, rode up and broke the ribbon. The New Guard also planned to kidnap Lang, and plotted a coup against him during the crisis that brought Lang's premiership to an end.^[4]

After his government was dismissed by the governor, Sir Philip Game, Lang continued to lead the Labor Opposition until 1939; when he was was replaced by William McKell, who became premier in 1941. Lang was expelled from the ALP in 1942, and started his own parallel Labor Party, called the ALP (Non-Communist); remaining a member of the Legislative Assembly until 1946. He then successfully ran for the division of Reid in the Australian House of Representatives (his state seat of Auburn was won by his son James Lang at a by-election). He was defeated in the 1949 general election and did not again stand for public office.^[2]

Lang spent his long retirement editing his newspaper, The Century, and wrote (possibly ghost-written) several books about his political life, including Why I Fight (1934), Communism in Australia: A Complete Exposure (1944), I Remember (1956), The Great Bust (1962) and The Turbulent Years (1970). He grew increasingly conservative as he grew older. Lang also spent time visiting Sydney schools recounting recollections of his time in office to his young audience. Lang gave a number of lectures at Sydney University circa 1972–1973, at which he discussed his time in office and other topics such as economic reform.^[2]

Jack passed away, aged 98 years, on 27th September 1975 at Auburn, New South Wales.^[5] Following a requiem mass and memorial service in St Mary's Cathedral he was buried in Rookwood General Cemetery.^{[2] [6]}

Sources

1. ↑ New South Wales Birth Index #182134/1876
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5} Wikipedia profile: Jack Lang; accessed 1 Oct 2019
3. ↑ New South Wales Marriage Index #515/1896
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} Parliament of New South Wales; accessed 1 Oct 2019
5. ↑ New South Wales Death Index #25309/1975
6. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/168614380/john_thomas-lang: accessed 24 February 2024), memorial page for John Thomas “Jack” Lang (12 Dec 1876–27 Sep 1975), Find a Grave Memorial ID 168614380, citing Rookwood Catholic Cemeteries and Crematoria, Rookwood, Cumberland Council, New South Wales, Australia; Maintained by Vox3000 (contributor 49056742).

Further reading

• Nairn, Bede. Lang, John Thomas (Jack) (1876–1975), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1983; accessed online 1 Oct 2019.