Bathurst Gaol Records

[Cate]

Have just found out through the digitised newspapers on Trove that grandfather was gaoled for 6 months in 1917 because he was a member of the unlawful union, the I.W.W. (Industrial Workers of the World) in Broken Hill.
He was sent to Bathurst Gaol. Always knew there was a skeleton there somewhere!

The records of prisoners are held in the NSW State Archives at the Western Sydney Records Centre and are not available online. Could someone kindly tell me if the only way to access these records is to engage a professional genealogist? We live in Qld and going to Sydney is not an option anytime soon.

Many thanks.

[majm]

Hi there,

Have you approached the NSW State Records office directly to ask them about these records ....

You may find that the records you are seeking are in the process of being indexed/catalogued etc.  Perhaps they already have the handwritten book that would have been used by the Prison's clerical staff in 1917 as their local index... if so there will be clues to help located his particular record at the Archives. 

Access is available to the public for many of their archives that I have not found on online indexes .... The staff are friendly and the rooms are well organised.  It can take up to an hour for the retrieval system to bring a file to the counter after you request it, BUT once you have seen the size of their storeage facility at Kingswood you understand why. 

NSW State Records Office
A Division of the Department of Services, Technology & Administration
PO Box 516, Kingswood, NSW 2747, Australia, Email: info (at) records.nsw.gov.au
http://www.records.nsw.gov.au/ (their phone and fax number are also displayed at the bottom of that welcome page) ...

[Cate]

Thankyou Majm
Will try contacting the Records Office directly and let you know how I get on.

[tedscout]

oooh Cate, Lucky you! He was a Red Ragga! A communist.

Author Kerry Greenwood has Bert and Cec as characters in her Phryne Fisher books set in the late 1920's. They belong to the IWW

Her books are very accurate historically. http://www.phrynefisher.com/

[Cate]

Thanks for that tip tedscout - I will check out those books as they sound interesting. It's always fascinating to get an historical context.

 Found out that Grandfather was also in trouble for speaking in support of the  I.W.W. at the Domain in Sydney!

[majm]

 

Perhaps he was simply anti conscription ... there were two referenda during WWI, both defeated the PM's attempts to bring in compulsory overseas military service ... the concept of men being labelled "communists" in the several years BEFORE the establishment of the USSR doesn't quite have the same meaning as being labelled "communists" after Lenin's revolution......

Broken Hill's local newspaper (The Barrier Miner) is now being digitised by the National Library ..
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home so you may find reports in that newspaper give more details on your chap.

As an aside
Henry Lawson (Australia's poet of the people, 1867 - 1922) was labelled a communist by some during the War Years ...  Perhaps also his mother Louisa, who was simply a feminist ...

 

Oops, forgot to add, your chap was probably standing side by side with my uncle  listening to my Great Uncle speaking against compulsory overseas military service ... (In the Domain in 1916 and again in 1917)

Cheers,  JM

[majm]

Hi there,

Detailed info about a chap who was accused of being IWW.  He was a delegate for a Trade Union, the Amalgamated Miners Association which was not a banned Association.  He was charged under Section 5 of the Commonwealth of Australia law ... "Unlawful Associations Act of 1916" this law was rushed through Federal Parliament in late December 1916, after the conscription referendum failed to give the PM what he wanted.

....."On 28 October 1916, a referendum to introduce conscription was rejected by the public and, as if to compensate for this defeat, Prime Minister Hughes decided to ban the IWW and had the Unlawful Associations Act 1916 (Cth) passed by Parliament on 19 December. The Act declared the IWW to be an unlawful association, rendering its members subject to imprisonment for six months if they took any action to hinder the war. Being an IWW member, however, was not illegal. Offending members not born in Australia could be deported. ...."
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UNSWLJ/2004/23.html

So being charged under that Act in Feb 1917 may indicate he was one of the first charged.   It would have been very controversial.  My oral history says that even some barristers were charged under that Act, but that they found the legal loopholes to get their charges dismissed.   

The chap mentioned in these articles was sentenced to six months in prison.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/45400025  (Barrier Miner newspaper 6 March 1917 )

and his appeal was dismissed, so the sentence stood
and http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/45418939  (Barrier Miner newspaper 25 April 1917)

Cheers,  JM

[Cate]

Thanks so much for that JM.

I've printed off those articles you mentioned and they give such a good account of the politics behind the prosecutions.

Grandfather was convicted in September 1917 and given a 6 month sentence.

However, he couldn't help himself. He spoke in the Domain in January 1919, supporting the Irishman Peter Larkin who had been imprisoned under the same law. So he was convicted again and sentenced to a further 6 months imprisonment.

I really appreciate your interest.
Regards
Cate

[majm]

Hi Cate,

There's a  chap in NSW history, both in politics and in family history ... the MUTCH index upon which so much pre Internet records are still based ...

Thomas Davies MUTCH, 1885-1958 ...  he was a member of the NSW parliament during the era your chap was in prison.  TD Mutch regularly spoke in the Domain in support of the Twelve IWW men.

http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A100638b.htm

Cheers,  JM