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australian rowers profiles and history

John S Clemons

Oxford University Boat Club (UK)

1885 - The Boat Race, Oxford University, two seat - First

John Clemons was educated at Launceston Grammar School before travelling to study at Oxford University where he rowed. 

When he returned to Australia, he practised law before being elected in 1901 to the first Australian Parliament as a senator for Tasmania.

His obituary in The Advocate, Saturday 24th March 1945, page 2 (extracted 14th June 2021 from trove.nla.gov.au) was as follows.

EX-SENATOR J. S. CLEMONS

LAUNCESTON, Friday. - Advice has been received of the death in England of ex-Senator John Singleton Clemons, one of Tasmania's Senators in the first Commonwealth Parliament. He was the elder brother of the late Dr. G. E. Clemons, of Launceston, while his wife, who predeceased him by a few days, was a daughter of the late Rev. W. H. Savigny, formerly headmaster of the Launceston Church Grammar School. Mr. Clemons was educated at the Grammar School, where he won a Tasmanian scholarship, and later at Oxford. He qualified for the bar, and on his return to Launceston practised for a time in partnership with the late Mr. Alexander Archer. 

In 1901 he was elected to the Senate, and re-elected in 1906 and 1913. He was a member of the Royal Commission on the Customs Tariff and an honorary minister in the Cook Government from June, 1913, till September, 1914, when he went to England.


Andrew Guerin
June 2021

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