Jack Little

Who was Jack Little?

John Albert "Jack" Little was an Australian politician. Born in Maryborough, Victoria, he was educated at East Brunswick and Thornbury state primary Schools, before becoming a clicker in a shoe factory in Collingwood, and later an official with the Victorian Boot Employees' Union, of which he was Federal President in 1944 and 1945. In 1952 was awarded a Commonwealth Bank Scholarship for six months, to study unionism and working conditions in the UK, Europe and the US. In 1954 he was elected to the Victorian Legislative Council for Melbourne North, representing the Australian Labor Party.

He left the Labor Party in 1955 and would be one of only two non-Catholic members of the Australian Labor Party in the Victorian Parliament. Little led the ALP in the Legislative Council from 1955 until 1958, the last two of those years as leader of the Democratic Labor Party, which was the new name for the ALP. Little re-contested his Province at the expiry of his term in 1958, but like all other DLP candidates at that election he was defeated. On losing his seat in 1958 he purchased a newsagency in Reservoir, Victoria, which he ran until his election to the Australian Senate in 1968.