Jack Zwolsman was a Soccer Anzac who also had a career in left wing politics. Born in Amsterdam in 1891 as Jan Frank De La Rie Viere Zwolsman he was the son of an assistant police commissioner.
Leaving home at a young age he had an adventurous early life working in the Dutch East Indies and the West Indies. He arrived in Australia in October 1910 from Java with fellow future Soccer Anzac Henry Bosma on the Dutch warship De Ruyter. It is not known whether they were passengers or temporary members of the Royal Netherlands Navy.
Jan became John and began a varied working life in Australia, initially at the Port Pirie smelters where he was also known as a marathon and middle distance runner. In Adelaide on 18 January 1915 he married Irene Agnes Kay, and applied for naturalization just four weeks later.
Although having been a member of the anti-war IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) “since his arrival in Australia”, Zwolsman enlisted in the AIF at Keswick Barracks in July 1915, giving his occupation as wireless telegraphist.
With reinforcements to the 10th Battalion, Zwolsman was in France by 1916. He spent some time attending gunnery courses in England in 1917, but by 1918 he was promoted to sergeant and took part in the 10th Battalion’s last battle, at Jeancourt in September.
Although wounded, his accurate Lewis gun fire knocked out a German machine gun. He then picked up a rifle and stalked a German sniper, eventually shooting him. For this action he was awarded the Military Medal.
Back home in Adelaide Jack Zwolsman began a significant playing career in Adelaide’s top division. Initially with Norths Athletic in 1920 – this club changed its name to Prospect the following year – by 1924, his last season, he was with North Adelaide. It is possible that his enthusiasm for the game was kindled by playing inter-unit matches in France. He played as a right-winger(!) and was a frequent goal scorer, bagging four for Prospect in a 5-0 win over Glenelg in June 1921. In that year he was named in a state team squad to play the Lancashire Association.
After retiring as a player Zwolsman started a new job in 1926 as a linesman for the PMG. However, politics and the welfare of the working man became his major passion in life. In 1926 he and other IWW members were jailed for speaking without a permit in Botanic Park, at a spot later known as Speakers’ Corner.
He moved from the IWW to the Communist Party in 1930, and became one of the leaders of the Unemployed Workers’ Movement. A protest march from Port Adelaide to Victoria Square in the city early in 1931 became a “riot” according to the newspapers, with Zwolsman criticized by respectable society. In that year he stood as a communist candidate for the federal seat of Adelaide. In a massive swing against Scullin’s Labor government and victory for Lyons’ United Australia Party, Jack Zwolsman received 576 votes. He stood in the 1933 state elections for the seat of Port Adelaide and received nearly 900 votes – a “good result” according to the Workers’ Weekly.
In 1936 he moved to Sydney, perhaps with the idea of making a fresh start. It appears that he abandoned his wife Irene; his daughter, also Irene, had recently married. A lifelong fitness fanatic, he had taught swimming and life saving at Adelaide’s beaches. He now became a pool attendant at the North Sydney swimming pool. It seems that his left wing beliefs were unshaken but his active involvement tapered off.
Just before Christmas 1941 Zwolsman enlisted in the second AIF at the age of 50. He served at depots in NSW, and by 1944 was in the Water Transport training company, presumably involved with landing craft. He was discharged in April 1945.
In 1943 Zwolsman married Mary Newell Cowley, describing himself as a bachelor at the Paddington registry office.
1950 saw Jack Zwolsman, a veteran of two world wars and the recipient of the Military Medal for bravery, expelled from the RSL for communist sympathies. He moved to the beach resort of Wamberal where he ran a boat hire business and was a member of the surf club.
Eventually moving to Queensland, Zwolsman died in Brisbane in 1969. Irene Zwolsman had died in Adelaide in 1964. Their daughter, also called Irene, died in Adelaide in 2013, aged 98.
Zwolsman is a significant figure in Australian social and political history, and deserves to be more widely known.