Joseph Benedict (Ben) Chifley (1885 - 1951), by unknown photographer, 1940s, courtesy of National Library of Australia. nla.pic-an23302770 . .Image Details

CHIFLEY, JOSEPH BENEDICT (1885-1951), prime minister and locomotive engine driver, was born on 22 September 1885 at Bathurst, New South Wales, eldest of three sons of Patrick Chifley (1862-1921), a native-born blacksmith, and his wife Mary Anne, née Corrigan (1856?-1929), from Ireland. Ben owed his name to a suggestion by the Mother Superior of St Benedict's Convent, Queanbeyan, where Mary had worked as a domestic servant for the Good Samaritan Sisters. His paternal forebears were also from Ireland and belonged to the class of 'literate small farmers and cottiers . . . people of some self-esteem and position'. Chifley's origins seldom troubled or influenced him, though an outburst in 1950 was to reveal his smouldering fires and feelings: 'I am the descendant of a race that fought a long and ...

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Source:

Australian Dictionary of Biography