James Michael "Jim" Sheehan (1889 – 10 April 1967) was an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n politician. Born in Castlemaine

Castlemaine, Victoria

Castlemaine is a city in Victoria, Australia, in the Goldfields region of Victoria about 120 kilometres northwest by road from Melbourne, and about 40 kilometres from the major provincial centre of Bendigo. It is the administrative and economic centre of the Shire of Mount Alexander. The...

, Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

, he received a primary education before becoming a railway worker. He was an organiser with the Australian Workers' Union

Australian Workers' Union

The Australian Workers' Union is one of Australia's largest and oldest trade unions. It traces its origins to unions founded in the pastoral and mining industries in the 1880s, and currently has approximately 135,000 members...

 and President of the Victorian Trades Hall

Victorian Trades Hall

Victorian Trades Hall is a Trades Hall building located in the suburb of Carlton, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and home to the Victorian Trades Hall Council....

 Council, as well as being an active member of the Victorian Labor Party

Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

. On 12 July 1938, he was appointed to the Australian Senate

Australian Senate

The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. Senators are popularly elected under a system of proportional representation. Senators are elected for a term that is usually six years; after a double dissolution, however,...

 for Victoria to fill a casual vacancy caused by the death of Labor Senator John Barnes

John Barnes (Australian politician)

John Barnes was a union official and Australian federal politician representing the Labor Party.-Early life:...

. Defeated in an attempt to be elected in his own right in 1940, he was successful in 1943, taking his place in 1944. He remained in the Senate until his retirement in 1961, taking effect in 1962. Sheehan died in 1967.