John Lister

Who was John Lister?

John Henry Lister was an Australian politician. Born in Lincolnshire, England, he was educated there at Wesley School. Having migrated to Australia in 1889, he farmed at Wutul, South Australia, before serving in the military 1914-16. He had been a member of the Australian Labor Party, but left it in 1916 over the issue of conscription, and, together with many other Labor members and MPs, ended up in the Nationalist Party of Australia. In 1917, Lister was elected as a Nationalist to the Australian House of Representatives as the member for Corio, defeating Labor MP Alfred Ozanne. He held the seat until his defeat in 1929; an attempt to regain Corio in 1931 as an independent United Australia candidate was unsuccessful. He moved to Queensland and returned to farming, where he died in 1935.