Andrew Joseph Kelly (1854 – 3 September 1913) was an Irish-born union official and Labor Party politician who served as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in the periods 1891 to 1894 and 1901 to 1913. He was known familiarly as 'Andy' Kelly.
Kelly worked as a dock-worker and seaman before arriving in Australia in 1881. He became involved in union activities in Sydney and rose to prominent positions in several unions, including serving as president of the Sydney Trades and Labour Council.
In June 1891 Kelly was amongst the initial group of Labor Party members elected to the New South Wales parliament. He was one of four Labor members representing the electorate of West Sydney from 1891 to June 1894, although in November 1893 he was expelled from the party. In late 1894, after an unsuccessful bid for re-election as a Protectionist Party candidate, Kelly moved to West Wyalong where he became a hotelkeeper. He returned to Sydney in 1899. He leased a hotel and in 1900 was elected as an alderman of the Sydney City Council. In 1901 Kelly was accepted as the Labor candidate for the Sydney-Denison electorate, to which he was elected. The electorate was abolished after a re-distribution and reduction of constituencies. Kelly was then elected as the member for The Lachlan in 1904, a seat which he held until his death in 1913.
Biography
Early years
Andrew Joseph Kelly was born in 1854 in Dublin, Ireland. He received his early education in the Irish national school system. As a young teenager Kelly "took to the sea... but after a year or so he abandoned the life of a sailor in favor of work on shore as a wharf-labourer".Mr. Kelly, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 3 July 1891, page 3. He began working as a stevedore's assistant for his uncle in Liverpool, England.Mr. A. J. Kelly, M.L.A., Dead, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 4 September 1913, page 9.
Dock worker and seaman
By about the early 1870s Kelly was working as a dock worker in Liverpool, during a period of economic prosperity, emerging unionisation and sporadic labour agitation. He was a participant in a dock workers' strike in Liverpool (possibly the series of industrial disputations for higher pay that occurred in 1872, culminating in a widespread but short-lived strike in October).Eric L. Taplin (1974), pages 18, 21-26.
In about the mid-1870s Kelly sailed to America "where he followed various pursuits" and eventually joined the United States Navy at New Orleans, serving on several vessels including the battleship U.S.S. Colorado.The Late Alderman A. J. Kelly, Freeman's Journal, 11 February 1913, page 13. After a naval service of three years he "spent a little time in sight-seeing" before he returned to Liverpool in 1878, working his passage aboard a vessel as a seaman.Andy Kelly, Western Champion (Parkes), 11 September 1913, page 13.
By 1878 Kelly was employed as a seaman aboard the S.S. Idaho, a mail steamer travelling between Liverpool and New York with cargo and passengers. The vessel left New York on 21 May 1878. On 1 June, after having crossing the Atlantic, the vessel briefly docked at Queenstown on Ireland's south coast. After resuming the voyage, that evening in dense fog the S.S. Idaho struck Coningbeg Rock off the Saltee Islands, county Wexford in Ireland. The passengers and crew survived by escaping in lifeboats.Idaho, Irish Shipwrecks website; accessed 12 March 2026.
After being shipwrecked Kelly returned to Liverpool and laboured on the docks there for several years. He then went to London "to try his luck there [but] found that he could not better himself". He then resolved to immigrate to Australia.
Sydney
Kelly arrived in Sydney in 1881 where he worked as a waterside worker and joined the local union.
In November 1882 unionised dock workers on the Sydney waterside went on strike for higher pay. The strike committee formulated a set of rules that were registered as a new union body, the Sydney Wharf Labourers' Union, replacing the two "labouring men's" associations that had been formed a decade earlier. The standard rate of pay for wharf labourers at that time was a shilling per hour (for a ten hour day). The union applied for an additional threepence per hour due to the cost of living and the irregular nature of their employment. The strike lasted for four weeks, during which the employers refused to grant a pay increase despite the delays and inconvenience that ensued. Though the strike was described as "an utter failure", it resulted in a consolidation of the Wharf Labourers' Union as the dock workers' representative.The Wharf Labourers' Strike, Sydney Daily Telegraph, 24 November 1882, page 2.It is very satisfactory..., Sydney Morning Herald, 11 December 1882, page 7.The 1880s: A Period of Growth, ANU Library Archives, Australian National University website; accessed 13 March 2026.
In 1884 Kelly entered into partnership with the journalist Edward W. O'Sullivan to publish the Democrat newspaper, "devoted to the interests of the working classes". However, the venture proved to be short-lived.Bruce E. Mansfield (1988), Edward William O'Sullivan (1846–1910), Australian Dictionary of Biography website, National Centre of Biology, Australian National University; accessed 14 March 2026.
By January 1885 Kelly was serving as president of the Wharf Labourers' Union.Wharf Labourers' Picnic, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 15 January 1885, page 6. In January 1886 he was recorded as vice-president of the union.Wharf Labourers' Union, The Globe (Sydney), 13 January 1886, page 5.
By 1888 Kelly was probably working as a carrier, driving a dray, when he was involved in the formation of a new draymen's union.Wharf Labourers, Evening News (Sydney), 22 April 1886, page 6. Kelly became "a familiar figure in the streets of Sydney as a driver for a well-known city house".Mr. Kelly's Death, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 September 1913, page 10. A meeting of the newly-formed Trolley and Draymen's Union was held in July 1888, at which office-bearers were elected and a code of rules drawn up for presentation at the next general meeting. Andrew Kelly was elected as the union president.Trade Meetings, Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 25 July 1888, page 4.
Kelly maintained his membership and involvement with the Wharf Labourers' Union.Wharf Labourers, The Australian Star (Sydney), 6 December 1888, page 3.
Andrew J. Kelly was elected president of the Sydney Trades and Labour Council in early September 1889.Trades and Labour Council, Sydney Morning Herald, 6 September 1889, page 8.
In late-March 1890 Kelly attended the Intercolonial Wharf Labourers' Union Conference in Sydney, during which he was elected president of the newly-formed Federated Wharf Laborers of Australasia.Wharf Labourers' Conference, The Australian Star (Sydney), 29 March 1890, page 6; The Wharf Laborers in Sydney, The Standard (Port Melbourne), 4 April 1890, page 4.Meetings, Tasmanian News (Hobart), 13 June 1890, page 1. In October 1890, during the maritime strike, Kelly travelled to Orange and Forbes to organise mass public meetings on behalf of the Labor Defence Committee.Strike Brevities, The Australian Workman (Sydney), 30 September 1890, page 1.
Political career
Labor League successes
In April 1891 Kelly was a foundation member of the West Sydney Labor Electoral League.The Labor Electoral League, The Daily Telegraph, 15 April 1891, page 6. The 1891 general election in New South Wales, held in June and early July 1891, saw the first electoral successes of the Labor Party (then known as the Labor Electoral League of New South Wales). The local Labor Electoral League nominated four candidates for the four-member West Sydney electorate in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly. As well as Kelly, the nominees were John D. FitzGerald, George Black and Thomas M. Davis.The General Elections, Evening News (Sydney), 16 June 1891, page 5.
The four Labor League candidates contested the election for the West Sydney seats against four Free Trade Party candidates (three of whom had been sitting members) and one representing the Protectionist Party. The poll, held on 17 June 1891, resulted in the election of all four Labor Party candidates. FitzGerald, Black and Kelly each attracted about fifteen percent of the vote and Davis was elected in fourth place with about ten percent.West Sydney – 1891, 'New South Wales Election Results 1856-2007', Parliament of New South Wales (website); accessed 4 March 2026. In a speech to the electors of West Sydney thanking them for his election as one of their parliamentary representatives, Kelly proclaimed: "No one will ever see Andy Kelly in a top-hat"."No one," said Andrew Kelly..., The Bulletin (Sydney), 27 June 1891, page 11. A newspaper report regarding the newly-elected labour members predicted that Kelly "will probably be the 'wild boy' of the party", describing how "he has already created a good deal of merriment by declaring with becoming solemnity from the hustings that, though he had been elected to Parliament, nothing would ever induce him to wear a top hat".The Labor Party, Daily Telegraph (Launceston), 6 July 1891, page 3. As a result of his "top hat" quip, the parliamentarian became affectionately known as 'plug-hat' Kelly.Bede Nairn (1973), page 87.
Caucus pledges
The nascent Labor party adopted a pledge in an attempt to enforce solidary amongst its parliamentary members. The initial Labor pledge, based on the trade union tradition of acceptance of decisions freely made at union meetings, called upon each selected Labor League candidate to agree to the party platform and subsequent decisions made at caucus meetings, as well as to sit on the cross benches if elected to parliament and resign if called upon by two-thirds of his electors.Bede Nairn (1973), pages 54-55, 67. There was no unanimity of opinion amongst the Labor Party members on the fiscal issue of free trade versus protectionism (at that time the major parliamentary factions in the New South Wales parliament), and voting and debates on fiscal concerns often pitted the concept of party solidarity against members' personal beliefs and their constituents' interests.Bede Nairn (1973), pages 76-77.
Soon after parliamentary sittings commenced the unity of the Labor party members was tested by a censure motion against the government by George Dibbs, leader of the protectionist opposition. The Labor party decided to support the free trade government led by Henry Parkes, a party that had been weakened by the loss of seats at the election. Many of the city Labor Leagues had selected protectionist candidates, including Kelly, so the decision to support Parkes' government was not popular. Dibbs' censure motion was lost, though Kelly and four other Labor members voted for it, choosing their fiscal beliefs over party solidarity.Bede Nairn (1973), pages 70-71.Death of Mr. Andy Kelly, M.L.A., Nambucca and Bellinger News, 5 September 1913, page 4.Death of Andy Kelly, Truth (Sydney), 7 September 1913, page 7. Of the five dissenters, Kelly and James Morgan were singled out as "deserters from the Labour cause". An article in The Australian Workman claimed that as a consequence of their dissenting vote Kelly and Morgan "will not be allowed to attend any future caucus meetings of the party, or to in any way take part in the private deliberations of the party".Seceders from the Labour Party, The Australian Workman (Sydney), 25 July 1891, page 3.