Thomas Patrick Howard

Thomas Patrick "Tom" Howard (13 March 1888 – 9 July 1949) was an Australian trade unionist and politician. He was a member of the South Australian House of Assembly from 1933 to 1938, representing the Lang Labor Party (1933), South Australian Lang Labor Party (1933–1934) and Australian Labor Party (1934–1938).

Howard was born in Gilbert Street, Adelaide, and educated at Christian Brothers College. He became a delegate for the Labor Party in 1908, and was elected president of the Painters' Union in 1909. He became the union's assistant state secretary in 1913, and succeeded T. B. Merry as state secretary that December. He subsequently served as the union's delegate to both the United Trades and Labour Council of South Australia and the United Labor Party, served on the union's federal council, was a member of the Painters and Decorators' Wages Board, and represented the Trades and Labor Council in various capacities. In 1918, he was elected president of the Trades and Labor Council, and in 1920 shifted to the role of its secretary. He was an unsuccessful Labor candidate for the House of Assembly at the 1918 election, 1921 election and 1924 election, in the Liberal-leaning seats of Sturt and Barossa.

In 1933, in the wake of the Great Depression and the 1931 Labor split, Howard was elected to the South Australian House of Assembly for Adelaide, representing the Lang Labor Party, a faction of the Australian Labor Party supporting the ideas of Jack Lang, the Premier of New South Wales. In April, however, he and fellow Lang Labor MP Bob Dale left the party after disputes with leader Doug Bardolph, forming their own breakaway group, the South Australian Lang Labor Party. In June 1934 the various Labor factions were reunited. Howard was defeated at the next election in 1938.

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