Tom Howard (Australian politician)
{{Short description|Australian politician}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
{{Use Australian English|date=August 2021}}
File:Tom Howard (politician).jpg
Thomas Patrick Howard (13 March 1880 – 9 July 1949) was an Australian trade unionist and politician.{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article130269687 |title=Well-known Labor man dies. |newspaper=The News |date=11 July 1949 |access-date=19 January 2016 |page=3 |via=Trove}} He was a member of the South Australian House of Assembly from 1933 to 1938, representing the Lang Labor Party (1933), South Australian Lang Labor Party (1933–1934) and Labor Party (1934–1938).
Howard was born in Gilbert Street, Adelaide, and educated at Christian Brothers College. He worked as a shop assistant in a warehouse before apprenticing as a painter and decorator in 1894, later working as a house painter.{{cite book |last1=Coxon |first1=Howard F. |last2=Playford |first2=John |last3=Reid |first3=Robert |name-list-style=amp |title=Biographical Register of the South Australian Parliament, 1857-1957 |date=1985 |publisher=Wakefield Press |isbn=9780949268242 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TEowAAAAYAAJ |access-date=25 December 2018 |language=en-Au |page=113}} He became a delegate for the Labor Party in 1908, and was elected president of the Painters' Union in 1909. He became the union's assistant state secretary in 1913, and succeeded T. B. Merry as state secretary that December.{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article105274933 |title=Federated House and Ship Painters Employees' Association |newspaper=Daily Herald |date=7 January 1913 |access-date=19 January 2016 |page=2 |via=Trove}}{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article105607878 |title=Federated Painters |newspaper=Daily Herald |date=10 December 1913 |access-date=19 January 2016 |page=2 |via=Trove}} He served as state secretary of the Painters and Decorators Union until 1934.
He was the secretary of the Anti-Conscription Campaign in 1916, represented his union on both the United Trades and Labour Council of South Australia and the United Labor Party, served on the union's federal council and was a member of the Painters and Decorators' Wages Board.{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article105386286 |title=MR. T. P. HOWARD. |newspaper=Daily Herald |date=15 January 1917 |access-date=19 January 2016 |page=6 |via=Trove}} In 1918, he was elected president of the Trades and Labor Council, and in 1920 shifted to the role of its secretary, which he would hold until 1932.{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article179406804 |title=Echo of recruiting conference |newspaper=Daily Standard (Brisbane, Qld. : 1912 – 1936) |date=7 June 1918 |access-date=19 January 2016 |page=3 |via=Trove}}{{cite book | url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-26487719/ | title=Labor's thirty years' record in South Australia : a short history of the Labor movement in South Australia, including biographical sketches of leading members, 1893–1923 | publisher=Daily Herald | year=1923 | pages=84}} He was an unsuccessful Labor candidate for the House of Assembly at the 1918 election, 1921 election and 1924 election, in the Liberal-leaning seats of Sturt and Barossa.{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60342828 |title=Central district No. 2 and Sturt |newspaper=The Register |date=11 April 1918 |access-date=19 January 2016 |page=7 |via=Trove}}{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article63038853 |title=Union Jack, red flag, and green flag |newspaper=The Register |date=14 April 1921 |access-date=19 January 2016 |page=8 |via=Trove}}{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16139840 |title=South Australia |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |date=9 April 1924 |access-date=19 January 2016 |page=12 |via=Trove}}
In 1933, in the wake of the Great Depression and the 1931 Labor split, Howard was elected to the South Australian House of Assembly for Adelaide, representing the Lang Labor Party, a faction of the Labor Party supporting the ideas of Jack Lang, the Premier of New South Wales. In April, however, he and fellow Lang Labor MP Bob Dale left the party after disputes with leader Doug Bardolph, forming their own breakaway group, the South Australian Lang Labor Party. In June 1934 the various Labor factions were reunited. Howard was defeated at the next election in 1938.{{Cite SA-parl |pid=3582 |name=Mr Thomas Howard |former=yes |access-date=23 August 2022}}
In 1945, he retired from the union movement and his then role as state secretary of the Shop Employees and Warehouse Employees' Union, citing failing hearing.{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43485478 |title=Mr T. P. Howard retires |newspaper=The Advertiser |date=21 March 1945 |access-date=19 January 2016 |page=7 |via=Trove}} He died at his home in Sturt Street, Adelaide in 1949, aged 69, and was buried in the Catholic Cemetery at West Terrace.{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article36675698 |title=Death of Mr T.P. Howard |newspaper=The Advertiser |date=12 July 1949 |access-date=19 January 2016 |page=3 |via=Trove}}{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article36675740 |title=Advertising. |newspaper=The Advertiser |date=12 July 1949 |access-date=19 January 2016 |page=12 |via=Trove}}