Peter Loughlin

Who was Peter Loughlin?

Peter Ffrench Loughlin was an Australian politician.

He was born in Braidwood to police constable John Loughlin and Sarah Jane, née Ffrench. He was educated at Girrinderra and Goulburn, becoming a schoolteacher and teaching at various public schools from 1900 to 1917. He married Louisa Davis at Cowra on 16 April 1906, with whom he had seven children. A member of the Australian Labor Party, he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1917 as the member for Burrangong, moving to Cootamundra with the introduction of proportional representation in 1920. He was Secretary for Lands and Minister for Forests from 1920 to 1922 and from 1925 to 1926, and deputy leader of the Labor Party from 1923 to 1926, when he resigned from the party. He ran as an independent candidate in 1930, during which time he was working as a proofreader for the Goulburn Evening Post, and in 1932 ran for Goulburn as a United Australia Party candidate, winning election. He was defeated in 1935. After his defeat Loughlin farmed in the Carcoar and Mandurama districts before retiring to Pennant Hills in the 1950s. Loughlin died at Hornsby in 1960.