Con Wallace
Australian politician (1881-1921)
Cornelius "Con" Wallace (19 January 1881 – 20 September 1921) was an Australian politician. Born in Sydney, he received a primary education before becoming a seaman and an organiser of the Seamen's Union of Australia. In 1917, he was elected to the Australian House of Representatives as the Labor member for West Sydney, succeeding Prime Minister Billy Hughes (elected as a member of the Labor Party but now a Nationalist), who contested Bendigo instead. In 1919, Wallace contested Nepean to make way for former Queensland Premier T. J. Ryan, but was defeated.
After Wallace's defeat in the 1919 election, Ryan's successor Ted Theodore appointed him to a position in the Queensland Navigation Department. He found the salary too small and returned to Sydney. After Ryan's death on 1 August 1921, he stood for Labor preselection in the 1921 West Sydney by-election; he lost to William Lambert. Wallace suffered a heart attack on 19 September and died the following day at St. Joseph's Hospital, Auburn, aged 40. His wife, the former Bridget Gallagher, was left destitute with three young children [Mary Elizabeth (known as Molly), 8yrs old, Cornelius Carr (known as Con), 5yrs old, and John Mithcell, 3yrs old] but was supported by his parliamentary colleagues.
“Con Wallace” enters the record as australian politician (1881-1921). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Wallace, Australian and politician can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5158021. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1881, 1921, 1917 and 1919.
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This entry incorporates text from “Con Wallace” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.