John Hargreaves (Queensland politician)

John Henry Hargreaves (1839 – 19 January 1907) was a member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly.^[1]

John Hargreaves
Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly for Cook
In office 27 Aug 1904 – 19 Jan 1907
Preceded by	John Hamilton
Succeeded by	Henry Douglas
Personal details
Born	John Henry Hargreaves 1839 Gravesend, Kent, England
Died	19 January 1907 (aged 68) Cooktown, Queensland, Australia
Resting place	Lost at sea
Political party	Ministerialist
Spouse	Mahala Gee (m.1875 d.1905)
Occupation	Builder

Biography

Hargreaves was born in Gravesend, Kent, the son of John Henry Hargreaves Snr. and his wife Charlotte (née Furner). He arrived in Queensland for a goldfields expedition and then established a timber and building business in Cooktown around 1878.

On 26 April 1875 he married Mahala Gee^[1] (died 1905)^[2] in Townsville and together had four sons and three daughters.^[1] He drowned on the government-owned ketch, the Pilot, which went missing during the 1907 Cooktown cyclone.^[3] His body was not recovered but a memorial to him is at the Cooktown Cemetery.^[4]

Public career

At the 1904 Queensland state election, Hargreaves won the seat of Cook for the Ministerialists, defeating the Labour candidate, Mr Le Vaux by two votes.^[5] As it was only four months before the 1907 Queensland state election when he died, no by-election was held.

Hargreaves had previously been a councilor on the Shire of Cook and was its Mayor from 1901 until 1904.^[1]