McGirr ministry (1947–1950)
53rd New South Wales Government led by Jim McGirr
The McGirr ministry (1947–1950) or Second McGirr ministry was the 53rd ministry of the New South Wales Government, and was led by the 28th Premier, Jim McGirr, of the Labor Party. The ministry was the second of three consecutive occasions when the Government was led by McGirr, as Premier.
McGirr was first elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1922 and served continuously until 1952, holding the various seats of Cootamundra, Cumberland, Bankstown, and Liverpool. Having served in the third ministry of Jack Lang, and the first and second ministries of William McKell, McGirr was variously torn between Lang Labor and the newly formed Australian Labor Party. When McKell stood aside as Premier in 1947 in order to take up an appointment as Governor-General of Australia, McGirr was elected Labor Leader and became Premier. McGirr led Labor to victory at the 1947 state election.
This ministry covers the period from 19 May 1947 until the 1950 state election, held on 30 June, when McGirr led Labor to victory and the Third McGirr ministry was sworn in.
Composition of ministry
The composition of the ministry was announced by Premier McGirr on 19 May 1947. The principal changes from the first McGirr ministry were that Bill Dunn was dropped, replaced by Bill Sheahan and the portfolio of Building Materials was created, filled by Claude Matthews. There was a rearrangement of the Ministry in September 1949, triggered by the resignation of Deputy Premier, Jack Baddeley.
“McGirr ministry (1947–1950)” enters the record as 53rd New South Wales Government led by Jim McGirr. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what McGirr, ministry and 53rd can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16259405. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1947, 1950, 1922 and 1952.
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This entry incorporates text from “McGirr ministry (1947–1950)” 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.