From Australia’s Jewish past: John Jacob Cohen – architect, politician and judge
John Cohen was born on 20 December 1859 at Grafton, NSW, the third son of London-born parents Samuel and Rosetta Cohen and one of thirteen children.
John Jacob Cohen
The family were well-known and prosperous and had made their money as country storekeepers, hotelkeepers and ship owners on the Clarence River in northern NSW. Despite the fact that the family was completely isolated from any Jewish community, John’s parents strove to maintain and uphold Jewish traditions and observed all ceremonies and festivals.
At the age of eleven, he would be up by three in the morning to row his father and a heavy set of scales several miles to weigh bags of maize before walking to the Ulmarra East Public School on the south bank of the Clarence River. At night he would prepare all the invoices for the maize.
He worked hard and was rewarded as dux at both Grafton Grammar School and Calder House Boys’ School in Redfern. He went on to the University of Sydney where he won a blue for the St Andrew’s College rugby football team. He graduated with a B.A. in 1879 with first-class honours in mathematics, followed by an M.A. in 1881. He became articled to a consultant engineer Davy & Sands in Pyrmont where he worked doing practical engineering while at night he studied architecture.
In 1882 John moved to Mackay, Queensland and set himself up as an architect and engineer, planning and supervising water installations for the sugar industry. Two years later, he moved to Brisbane, where he became a founder and treasurer of the Queensland Institute of Architects and was elected a life member in 1892. Before long, in the 1892/93 Economic Depression, John decided to study law in Sydney. He was admitted to the Bar on 31 May 1894 and was engaged in arbitration cases involving building and engineering works. He was a hard worker and a supporter of Federation, becoming a member of the Australian Federation League’s Literary Committee. In 1898, he won the Petersham Seat in the Legislative Assembly for Sir Edmund Barton’s National Federal Party. John held the seat until 1919 as a Liberal and again later for the National Party. He became Chairman of Committees from 1907 to 1910 and Speaker from 1917 to 1919. He was an ardent monarchist and criticised publicly in the House in 1912 two Labor members who had refused to remove their hats whilst the national anthem was being played. In 1917 he reprimanded the Industrial Workers of the World and criticised Labor sympathy for them.
John resigned his seat on 30 January 1919, and the next day he was appointed to the District Court Bench. This brought protests from the Bar and other organisations on the grounds that his practice had been negligible. It was noted by Mr Hugh Bignold, a well-known barrister, that in nineteen years, ‘he had never yet seen Mr Cohen in robes’ and that there had been political bargaining. John’s supporters maintained that he had a fairly good practice at the Bar and that no other member of the assembly had upset so many bills on legal points. He sat in the Northern District Court and from 1921, in the Metropolitan District Court. In 1926 he shocked lawyers by permitting a layman to appear for an accused person at a criminal trial at Darlinghurst. When John retired in 1929, tributes were paid to his fair-mindedness, ability, integrity, common sense and loyalty.
He took a keen and varied interest in public affairs and was a director of the Hospital Saturday Fund of New South Wales from 1893 to 1936, a member of the Board of Management of the Great Synagogue from 1900, and of the Captain Cook’s Landing Place and the La Pérouse Monuments Trust for many years as well as a founder and director of the University Club from 1905. He became an honorary member of the Institute of Architects of New South Wales, publishing a pamphlet in 1912 on ‘’Some of the Legal Aspects of an Architect’s Practice’’. At the outbreak of World War I he joined the Executive Committee of the State Division of the Australian Branch of the British Red Cross Society.
In 1923 John chaired the Commonwealth Royal Commission to inquire into the supposed loss of the forest of Sumatra and, the following year, he chaired the Royal Commission into proposals for the establishment of new states.
John passed away on 23 March 1939, aged seventy-nine, at his residence in Woollahra. He was buried in the Jewish section of Rookwood Cemetery. He was survived by his wife Bertie Hollander and his two sons, both of whom served with the Australian Imperial Force. Cedric became a distinguished ophthalmologist in Sydney, and Colyn was a well-known solicitor in Newcastle.
The AJHS acknowledges the following references in the preparation of this story:-
Australian Dictionary of Biography – HTE Holt; Wikipedia; NSW Government Parliamentary Records
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