John Owen Critchley (18 April 189227 April 1964) was an Australian politician who served as a Labor member of the South Australian House of Assembly from 1930 to 1933 and then the Australian Senate from 1947 to 1959. Born at Callington in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia, and schooled in and around Petersburg (later Peterborough), Critchley completed an apprenticeship as a wheelwright, but was then sacked for forming a branch of his union. He was a founding member and also served twelve years on the executive of the Amalgamated Coach Rolling Stock Makers' and Wheelwrights' Societylater the Australian Coachmakers Employees' Federation then the Vehicle Builders Employees' Federation. He briefly served with the 10th Battalion on the Western Front in France and Belgium during World War I, but was repatriated as medically unfit, suffering from a neck condition.
Critchley returned to Peterborough and worked for South Australian Railways as a carpenter. He joined the Labor Party and was active in his local community, including serving two terms on the town council. He successfully ran as a Labor candidate for the seat of Burra Burra in the South Australian House of Assembly in the 1930 South Australian state election, but was defeated in 1933 after the Labor Party split over austerity measures and his expulsion from the party. He was readmitted to the party the following year, and worked as a vehicle registration clerk then managed clothing rations during World War II. In 1946 Critchley was elected to the Australian Senate, and served until 1958, being re-elected twice. He was opposition whip in the Senate from 1950 to 1957, responsible for maintaining party discipline. As a senator, Critchley advocated for returned servicemen, conservation, and railway reform, and was a fierce supporter of Labor's banking policies. He promoted a national perspective on a range of issues, including railway reform, conservation, and the flying of the Australian flag, and was a strong opponent of state parochialism. Illness caused him to step down as opposition whip in 1957, and he did not contest the 1958 election, retiring in June 1959. When he died five years later he was described by a fellow senator as "a true Labour man" who was "always ready to fight injustice and to resist it".
Early life
John Owen Critchley was born on 18 April 1892 at Callington in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia, a son of a labourer, Patrick Critchley, and his wife Julia Burns. Known as Jack, Critchley had two younger brothers, Henry and Michael. The family moved to Gumbowie, where Patrick worked as a railway packer at the station on the Petersburg railway line, and Jack attended school at Sunnybrae near Petersburg, and at Petersburg itself. Critchley left school aged 13 as he felt that his parents were struggling financially to keep him at school. He commenced a four-year apprenticeship as a wheelwright with the Schubert family in Murray Bridge in 1906, but at the end of his term the family dismissed him because he had formed a local branch of the Amalgamated Coach Rolling Stock Makers' and Wheelwrights' Societylater the Australian Coachmakers Employees' Federation then the Vehicle Builders Employees' Federation. Critchley was a foundation member of the federation, and served on its executive for twelve years. He moved to Maitland on the Yorke Peninsula looking for work.
World War I
Critchley enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force at Adelaide on 14 January 1916. He was allocated to the 16th reinforcements to the South Australia-raised 10th Battalion, and after training embarked aboard the HMAT A9 Shropshire at Outer Harbor on 25 March. After stopping in Egypt, his reinforcement draft went on to the UK for further training, and Critchley joined the 10th Battalion in France on 25 August.
When Critchley joined the battalion, it had just endured the Battles of Pozières and Mouquet Farm, during which it had suffered severe casualties. The unit entrained for Belgium and served a week in the trenches at Hill 60 near Ypres in late September, before returning to France. The battalion was on fatigue duties at Bernafay Wood on 2 November, when Critchley was evacuated to hospital. Further evacuated to the UK, he was admitted to hospital on 15 November with torticollis, or wry neck. He was discharged from hospital on 25 November and was then transferred through several convalescent and personnel depots, but the neck condition was persistent, and he was embarked on the hospital ship Port Lyttleton on 19 October 1917. He disembarked in Adelaide on 11 December and was discharged as medically unfit on 25 January 1918. His brothers Henry and Michael also enlisted and were both killed in action during the war.