John Harris (New South Wales politician)
Politician, mayor and land owner from New South Wales, Australia (1838-1911)
John Harris (10 August 1838 – 7 November 1911) was an Irish-born Australian politician.
He was born in Maghera in County Londonderry to John Harris and Nancy Ann McKee. His family migrated to Sydney in 1842. He attended the University of Sydney, but left before graduating to manage the property he had inherited from his father. In 1869 he married Lizzie Henrietta Dingle Page; they had eight children.
He was a Sydney City Councillor from 1873 to 1883, from 1885 to 1900 and from 1902 to 1911, serving as Mayor from 1881 to 1883 and from 1888 to 1889, known for reforming the council and with a reputation for honesty. He was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for West Sydney at the 1877 election, but he was defeated at the 1880 election. He was returned to the Legislative Assembly as the member for South Sydney at the 1882 election, he did not contest in 1885. He stood as the Liberal Reform candidate for Pyrmont at the 1904 election, but was unsuccessful. He did not hold any ministerial office.
The public source identifies “John Harris (New South Wales politician)” as politician, mayor and land owner from New South Wales, Australia (1838-1911). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around John, Harris and South.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 13, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q20810970. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1838, 1911, 1842 and 1869.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Harris (New South Wales politician)” 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.