| McGowen was born on the Western Bride as his parents were on their way to Australia. He was apprenticed as a boilermaker in Sydney in 1870 and was involved in the iron trades strike of 1873-1874 while a member of the United Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders of New South Wales. He was Secretary of the Union intermittently from 1874 to 1890, a delegate to the New South Wales Trades and Labor Council and a member of the Trades Hall Committee which oversaw the building of the Sydney Trades Hall. A member of the Labor Electoral League (Labor Party) in the colony of New South Wales, McGowen made an unsuccessful bid to enter federal politics in 1901 returning to state politics immediately after. He led the Labor Party to victory in 1910 and served as Premier until 1913. He died in 1922. |
