John Fegan

Who was John Fegan?

John Lionel Fegan was an Australian politician.

Fegan was born in Chelmsford, Essex, England and worked as a coalminer in Northern Wales and Lancashire from the age of 16. He married Ann Saggerson in February 1883 and they had one daughter and one son, but he abandoned them in 1896 to travel to New South Wales . He worked as a miner in the Newcastle area and settled in Wickham. He was employed as a check inspector at Bullock Island colliery and became a union delegate.

He was one of the Australian Labor Party's first members of parliament, elected in 1891 to represent the seat of Newcastle in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly. He refused to swear Labor's pledge of solidarity and in 1894 won Wickham as independent labor. He chaired a select committee on working of collieries in 1894 and served on the royal commission on city railway extension in 1897. Along with Labor, he supported George Reid's Free Trade government from 1894, but moved the motion in 1899, that brought it down.

Fegan became secretary for mines and agriculture in William Lyne's Protectionist government between September 1899 and April 1901.