Jack Renshaw

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John Brophy ('Jack') Renshaw (8 August 1909 - 28 July 1987) was Labor Premier of New South Wales from 30 April 1964 to 13 May 1965, a period of 1 year and 14 days.

Born in Wellington in central New South Wales - his parents were John Ignatius Renshaw and Ann Renshaw (née Reidy) - Jack was educated at the Binnaway Central School, Patrician Brothers at Orange, and then Holy Cross College at Ryde in north-western Sydney. After leaving school, he helped to run the family dairy property at Hampden Park, and also helped operate a milk run out of Binnaway. With his brothers he opened a butchery business, as well as a stock and station agency and oil and fuel depot.

He joined the Labor Party in 1930, becoming a member of the central executive from 1945 to 1950, then President of the Gwydir electorate council for ten years from 1939. In addition, he was an alderman in the Coonabarabran Shire Council from 1937 to 1944. For part of that time (1939-40) he was Shire President. He went on to serve as Deputy Premier from 1959 to 1964 (when Robert Heffron was Premier). Once Heffron retired in April 1964, Renshaw became Premier himself.

This tenure proved to be no more than a stopgap for a party which, after almost a quarter of a century in government, was tired. It ended in May 1965, when for the first time ever in New South Wales history, the Liberals won power. The Liberal leader, Sir Robert Askin, often used the slogan "Twenty-four years of Labor misrule". Renshaw resigned from the Labor leadership shortly after a second defeat, again by Askin, in 1968. (Former Deputy Premier Pat Hills succeeded him as leader, and held the office till 1973.) But he remained an important figure in the party's ruling circles, and he served as Treasurer during the first four years (1976-80) of Neville Wran's administration.

In 1943 Renshaw wed Hilda May Wall; by her he had a son. His second wife, whom he married in 1966, was Meg Mackay (who had four children in total: one by Renshaw, three by a previous marriage). He died at the age of 77 in 1987 in the northern Sydney suburb of Chatswood.

Preceded by: Robert Heffron

Premier of New South Wales 1964-1965

Succeeded by: Robert Askin

Premiers of New South Wales
Donaldson | Cowper | Parker | Forster | Robertson | Martin | Parkes | Farnell | Stuart | Dibbs | Jennings | Reid | Lyne | See | Waddell | Carruthers | Wade | McGowen | Holman | Storey | Dooley | Fuller | Lang | Bavin | Stevens | Mair | McKell | McGirr | Cahill | Heffron | Renshaw | Askin | Lewis | Willis | Wran | Unsworth | Greiner | Fahey | Carr | Iemma