George Sangster (politician)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
George Sangster (23 June 1845 – 8 April 1915) was a Scottish-born Australian politician. He was a member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly from 1894 until his death in 1915, representing the electorate of Port Melbourne for the Australian Labor Party (1894-1902), as an Independent Labor member (1902-1905) and again as an endorsed Labor member (1905-1915).
He was born in Woodside, Aberdeen, the son of mill manager Andrew Sangster.[1] He left school at the age of nine and worked in the J. J. Crosbie & Co woolen mills and as a railway engine cleaner based out of Macduff (Banff) railway station. In 1867, he went to work as a seaman (naval fireman) for Allan Line Royal Mail Steamers, primarily on routes between England and North America. In May 1870, he migrated to Melbourne on the steamship Great Britain. He largely worked in Australian and trans-Tasman coastal shipping during the 1870s and early 1880s, apart from stints at the Fitzroy Gasworks and as an enginedriver for the Victoria Ice Company. From the mid-1880s, he was an enginedriver at Newport Freezing Works for four years, then manager of the Williamstown shed of wool and stevedoring firm Close and Lawrence, and finally enginedriver for the Kimpton and Son flour mill at Kensington until his election as Seamen's Union secretary in 1893. In 1880 he married Sarah Gertrude Bourke, with whom he had four children.[2][3]
