Family background
Colin Edgar Elphick was born in 1900, son of James Elphick and Annie. In 1934 he married Jessie Maude Robertson at Sydney. He died at Sydney on 21 March 1970, 69 years. Jessie Elphick died in 1974.
Occupation & interests
Elphick worked as a telegraphist at the Sydney GPO, whose members belonged to the Post and Telegraph Officers Association, the first industrial organisation to be formed among government employees in Australia.
Community activity
Glebe Labor aldermen in the 1940s, remained like their collegues in the preceding decade, anti-Communist, socially conservative, predominantly Catholic, and likely to belong to a moderate union.
Local government service
Colin Elphick was part of the changing of the guard on Glebe Council in the 1940s, and in the leadership of local Labor branches. Elphick was one of 12 Official (McKell) Labor candidates electted in 1944, and with the position of mayor being rotated among senior members, Elphick was elected mayor in 1945. Glebe had returned a member to the NSW Legislative Assembly from 1856 but in 1941 in an electorate redistribution the seat of Glebe was abolished.
References
Hogan, Michael 2004, Local labor: a history of the Labor Party in Glebe, 1891-2003, Federation Press, Annandale, NSW
Sydney Morning Herald, 4 December 1944, p. 6
‘Rain Adds To Family’s Troubles’, The Sun, 16 November 1945, p. 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article229026035
Sydney Morning Herald, 23 March 1970