He died in Perth on 6 January, just five days after the 1 January 1901 Proclamation of the Commonwealth of Australia in Sydney, and was buried in the Roman Catholic section of Perth's Karrakatta Cemetery. He was thirty-one years old. According to Victor Courtney, "undoubtedly leadership of the Labour Party and Premiership of the country would have come his way in the course of political events had he lived."
