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John Cohen (Australian politician)

Australian politician (1859-1939)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ17514401
Source-derived summary

John Jacob Cohen (20 December 1859 – 25 March 1939) was an Australian politician.

He was born in Grafton to storekeeper Samuel Cohen and Rosetta Manser. He attended Ullamarra Public School and Grafton Grammar School and then Calder House in Redfern. He received a Bachelor of Arts with first-class honours in mathematics from the University of Sydney in 1879 and a Master of Arts in 1881. Having also studied architecture at night school, he moved to Mackay in Queensland in 1882 as a consulting engineer and architect, subsequently moving to Brisbane in 1884. He married Bertie Hollander on 12 March 1889; they had two sons. Cohen returned to Sydney in 1892 and was called to the bar in 1894. In 1898, he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as the National Federal member for Petersham, but by 1901 he was re-elected as a Liberal. A backbencher for most of his career, he was elected Speaker in 1917. In 1919, he resigned from parliament to become a judge of the District Court, allegedly as part of a deal between William Holman and the Liberals that had led to the Nationalist government in 1917.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “John Cohen (Australian politician)” as australian politician (1859-1939). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around John, Cohen and Australian.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1859, 1939, 1879, 1881—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1859-12-20. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with John, Cohen and Australian providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “John Cohen (Australian politician)”, the useful work is to connect “australian politician (1859-1939)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

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 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17514401. VIAF identifies the subject as 82691525. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1859, 1939, 1879 and 1881.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

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  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

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  2. Expand the search: follow John Cohen (Australian politician) primary sources, John Cohen (Australian politician) archive and John research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from John Cohen (Australian 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.