Born in Plaistow, Essex, the son of William Henry Crush,[1] Crush worked as a teacher in Essex before moving to Australia in 1888, where he worked a number of different jobs around Australia, and eventually settled in the Northern Territory at Wandi, near Pine Creek in 1897 to work a goldmine.[2]
Crush married local identity Fannie Cody (a suffragette known as "Fighting Fannie") on 3 August 1898 and together they built the Federation Hotel at Brock’s Creek,[2] while becoming involved in local issues. In May 1901, Crush founded and became secretary of the Brocks Creek branch of the North Australian League, which fought for local issues.[1] Following the 1908 death of Vaiben Louis Solomon, one of the two members for the Northern Territory in the South Australian House of Assembly, Crush successfully stood as a Labor candidate in the resulting by-election,[3][4] becoming the first successful Labor candidate (and the second candidate over all) in the Northern Territory.[5]
When Crush first arrived in Adelaide, there was speculation about his political leanings despite his election on the Labor ticket due to so little being known about him[3] and the fact he had not signed the Labor pledge.[6]
In parliament, Crush pushed for Northern Territory-related issues, like the direction of the Darwin to Adelaide railway[1] and, with Fannie's help, was comfortably re-elected at the 1910 South Australian legislative election, with John Alexander Voules Brown as his colleague.[7] In 1911, the Northern Territory was moved from South Australian to federal administration, leading to the abolition of the Northern Territory electorate.[3] Crush believed it would only be a short time before the Northern Territory was granted political representation in the Parliament of Australia and declared his intention to run at the federal election.[6]
However, Crush's health began to deteriorate and after a lengthy stay at Darwin Hospital, he died of heart failure on 27 August 1913, aged about 48.[8] Called "a fluent and quietly convincing speaker"[3] and gaining recognition for his "unassuming good nature and sincerity" around Adelaide,[3] South Australian Labor colleagues erected a memorial to him at his burial place in the Darwin Pioneer Cemetery.[6]
James, B. (1995). Occupation Citizen. Self-published. ISBN0-646-26430-3.
James, B. (2008). "Crush, Thomas George (Tom)". In Carment, D; Edward, C; et al. (eds.). Northern Territory Dictionary of Biography. Darwin: Charles Darwin University Press. ISBN9780980457810.
