Trades Hall, Brisbane. Trades Hall had long been a centre for radical agitation, from the great strike of 1912 to Peter Beattie’s famous bashing on its steps by overzealous cops after the 1971

Fryer Library, University of Queensland

At the start of the twentieth century, many workers in Rockhampton laboured more than 56 hours a week, earned low pay and suffered poor conditions.

Carters and Drivers’ Union float in Eight Hour Day procession, just prior to World War I. Central Queensland Collection, Central Queensland University Library, Rockhampton

Central Queensland University Library

Architect’s drawing of Trades Hall Theatre and adjoining Trades Hall, Rockhampton, c1920. Collection of Barbara Webster

Collection of Barbara Webster

The Tree of Knowledge Memorial, Barcaldine, 2009. Featuring the original trunk, poisoned.  Collection of the Centre for the Government of Queensland

Copyright © Centre for the Government of Queensland, 2010

Australian Workers Heritage Centre, Barcaldine, 2009. Collection of the Centre for the Government of Queensland

Copyright © Centre for the Government of Queensland, 2010

Australian Workers Heritage Centre, Barcaldine, 1991. Celebration Theatre, Centenary of Australian Labour Movement, Barcaldine. Slide by Barcaldine Council, Collection of the Centre for the Government of Queensland

Copyright © Barcaldine Council and Centre for the Government of Queensland, 2010

The ballad of 1891

The price of wool was falling in 1891

The men who owned the acres said something must be done

‘We’ll break the shearers’ union and show we’re masters still

And they’ll take the terms we’ll give them or

We’ll find the men who will!’

Helen Palmer, ‘The Ballad of 1891’, 1950

1 January 1950
29 September 2010
29 September 2010

Freedom on the Wallaby, 1891

So we must fly a rebel flag

As others did before us

And we must sing a rebel song

And join in rebel chorus.

We’ll make the tyrants feel the sting

O’ those that they would throttle

They needn’t say the fault is ours

If blood should stain the wattle.

Henry Lawson ‘Freedom on the Wallaby’ The Worker, Brisbane 16 May 1891

16 May 1891
29 September 2010
29 September 2010
The Worker

At the start of the twentieth century, many workers in Rockhampton laboured more than 56 hours a week, earned low pay and suffered poor conditions. Horses, as assets, were more highly valued by employers than easily replaced employees. Few unions existed in Rockhampton other than those for skilled tradesmen. Several unions for labourers and the semi-skilled had formed in the 1880s, but defeat in the great strikes of the early 1890s, economic Depression and prolonged drought crushed unionism throughout eastern Australia.

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