'Some Mysterious Terror': The Relationship Between Capital and Labour in Ipswich, 1861-96

Labour History

Volumn , Issue 72, 1997, Pages 77-100

  Bowden, Bradley ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 79960475091     PISSN: 00236942     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3828/27516467     Document Type: Article

References (104)

1. Worker, 18 October 1890.
2. The Labor Party did win the electorate of Rosewood in the 1896 general election. This electorate, however, was largely rural in nature, comprising small farming towns such as Marbuce minden Lowood and Rosewood itself.
3. The prominent role of Ipswich in the Queensland labour movement figures in Ken Buckley, The Amalgamated Engineers in Australia, Canberra, 1970; Andrew Spaull and Martin Sullivan, A History of the Queensland Teachers' Union, Sydney, 1989; R. L. Whitmore, Coal in Queensland: the late nineteenth century, Brisbane, 1985; Viv Daddow, The Puffing Pioneers - Queensland's railway builders, Brisbane, 1975.
4. Fernand Braudel [Trans, by Sian Reynolds], The Identity of France, 2 Volumes, London, 1990.
5. D. Waterson, Squatter, Selector, Storekeeper: A History of the Darling Downs, 1859-93, Sydney, 1968; G. Bolton, A Thousand Miles Away: A History of North Queensland to 1920, Canberra, 1963, p. 334. Other professional regional histories from the 1960s include M. Kiddle, Men of Yesterday, Melbourne, 1961; R. B. Walker, Old New England, Sydney, 1966; L. T. Daley, Men and a River: A History of the Richmond River District 1828-1895, Melbourne, 1966; G. L. Buxton, The Riverina 1861-1891, Melbourne, 1967; W. K. Hancock, Discovering Monaro: A Study of Man's Impact on the Environment, Cambridge, 1972.
6. J. W. McCarty, "Australian Regional History", Australian Historical Studies, vol. 18, no. 70, April 1978, p. 93.
7. Robert Redfield, The Little Community: Viewpoints for the study of a human whole, Chicago, 1955.
8. R. A. Wild, Bradstow: A Study of Status, Class and Power in a Small Australian Town, Revised edition, Sydney, 1978; Claire Williams, Opencut: The working class in an Australian mining town, Sydney, 1981. More recently, Janet McCalman has produced a work that successfully combines the sociological approach of Wild and Williams within an historical framework in Struggletown: Portrait of an Australian Working Class Community, Melbourne, 1984.
9. Erik Eklund, 'We are of age: Class, locality and region at Port Kembla, 1900 to 1940', Labour History, no. 66, May 1994, p. 85.
10. Braudel, op. cit., vol. II, p. 670.
11. Robin Gollan, The Coalminers of New South Wales: A History of the Union 1860-1960, Melbourne, 1963, p. 2.
12. Herbert Gutman, Work, Culture and Society in Industrializing America: Essays in American Working Class and Social History, New York, 1976. For commentaries on Gutman's work and its significance see Christopher L Tomlins, 'New Directions in American Labor History7, Labour History, no.43, November 1982, pp. 90-103; Greg Patmore, 'Community and Australian Labour History7 in Terry Irving (ed), Challenges to Labour History, Sydney, 1994, pp. 172-5.
13. E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, London, 1968, p. 213.
14. John F?rster, Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution: early industrial capitalism in three English towns, London 1974, pp. 253-4. Other notable studies of locality in the United Kingdom include Bill Williamson, Class, Culture and Community: A Biographical Study of Social Change in Mining, London, 1982; Teresa Hayter and David Harvey (eds), The Factory and the City: The Story of the Crawly Automobile Workers in Oxford, London, 1993; Dianne Drummond, Crewe: Railway Town, Company and People 1840-1914, Leicester, 1995.
15. Paul G. Faler, Mechanics and Manufacturers in the Early Industrial Revolution: Lynn, Massachusetts, 1780-1860, Albany, 1981, pp. 232-3. For other notable studies of locality in United States labour historiography see Susan E. Hirsch, Roots of the American Working Class: The Industrialization of Crafts in Newark, 1800-1860; Bruce Laurie, Working People of Philadelphia, 1800-1850, Philadelphia, 1980; John T Cumbler, Working Class Community in Industrial America: Work, Leisure and Struggle in Two Industrial Cities, 1880-1930, Westport, 1979; William W. Pilcher, The Portland Longshoremen: A Dispersed Urban Community, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1972; Daniel J Walkowitz, Worker City, Worker Town: Iron and Cotton-Worker Protest in Troy and Cohoes, New York, 1555-54,.Urbana, 1978.
16. L. Taksa, 'Scientific Management: Technique or Cultural Ideology?', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 34, no. 3,1992, pp. 368-73; Patmore, op. cit., p. 184; Greg Patmore, '"American Hustling Methods" - the Lithgow Small Arms Factory 1912-1922*, Labour History, no. 67, November 1994, pp. 42-56.
17. A. Metcalfe, For Freedom and Dignity: Historical Agency and Class Structures in the Coalfields of New South Wales, Sydney, 1988; J. C. Docherty, Newcastle: The Making of an Australian City, Sydney, 1983; A. W.Metcalfe, 'Mud and Steel: The Imagination of Newcastle', Labour History, no. 64, May 1993, pp. 1-18; L. Richardson, The Bitter Years: Wollongong during the Great Depression, Sydney, 1984; W. Mitchell and G. Sherington, Growing up in the lllawarra - a social history 1834-1984, Wollongong, 1984;.B. Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Six Penny Ale: A Social History of Broken Hill, 1883-1921, Carlton, 1978; B. Kennedy, 'Regionalism and Nationalism: Broken Hill in the 1880s', Australian Economic History Review, vol. 20, no. 1, March 1980, pp. 64-76; N. Cushing, Creating the Coalopolis, Paper given to the Third National Labour History Conference, Newcastle, 24 June 1993; J. W. Turner, Manufacturing in Newcastle 1801-1900, Newcastle, 1980; A. Walker, Coaltown: A Social Survey of Cessnock, NSW, Melbourne, 1945; Mel Davies, 'Cornish Miners and Class Relations in early colonial South Australia: the Burra Burra Strikes of 1848-49', Australian Historical Studies, no. 105, October 1995, pp. 568-95; R. Kreigler, Working for the Company: Work and Control in the Whyalla Shipyard, Melbourne, 1980; Eklund, op. cit.; E. McEwen, The Ties that Divide', in V. Burgmann and J. Lee (eds), Staining the Wattle: A People's History of Australia since 1788, Melbourne, 1988, pp. 27-47.
18. Waterson, op. cit.; Bolton, op. cit.; Jan Walker, Jondaryan Station: The Relationship between Pastoral Capital and Pastoral Labor 1840-1890, Brisbane, 1988; Maurice French, Pubs, ploughs & 'peculiar people': towns, farms and social life - a history of the Darling Downs Frontier, vol. 3, Toowoomba, 1992; Williams, op. cit.; K. Kulen, Drovers, Diggers and Draglines: A History of Blair Athol and Clermont, Brisbane, 1984.
19. James Walker, 'Johannes Bjelke-Petersen - the populist autocraf, in Dennis Murphy, Robert Joyce and Margaret Cribb (eds), The Premiers of Queensland, revised edition, Brisbane, 1990, p. 523; Humphrey McQueen, 'Queensland: a state of mind', Meanjin, vol. 38, no. 1,1979, p. 43; Ross Fitzgerald, From the Dreaming to 1915: A History of Queensland, Brisbane, 1982; Colin A. Hughes, 'Land and Settlemenf, in D. J. Murphy, R. B. Joyce and Colin A. Hughes (eds), Labour in Power: The Labour Party & Governments in Queensland, Brisbane, 1980, p. 225; Kenneth Wiltshire, 'Manufacturing', in ibid, p. 271.
20. J. Laverty, The Queensland economy 1860-1915', in D. J. Murphy, R. B. Joyce and Colin A. Hughes (eds), Prelude to Power: the rise of the Labour Party in Queensland 1885-1915, Brisbane, 1970, pp. 31-2,38.
21. N. G. Butlin, Investment in Australian Economic Development 1861-1900., Canberra, 1971, p. 201. Butlin's estimates are challenged by G. J. R. Linge, Industrial Awakening: A Geography of Australian Manufacturing 1788 to 1890, Canberra, 1979, pp. 712-5. linge places the percentage of the Queensland population engaged in manufacturing at 8.8 per cent, compared to 10.6 per cent for Victoria and 12 per cent for New South Wales. Much of the difficulty in calculating the percentage of the Queensland population relates to the unsatisfactory nature of the Queensland census data. Not only was factory employment calculated on a different basis from that used in southern colonies, but the criteria used in Queensland itself was continually changed. Linge notes that 'it is impossible to reorganise satisfactorily the published data from the 1861,1871 and 1881 censuses'.
22. ibid, p. 185.
23. D. P. Crook, Aspects of Brisbane Society in the 1880s, BA Hons thesis, University of Queensland, 1958, p. 4. In southern Queensland Crook estimates that by 1891 the urban population accounted for 60.3 per cent of the total.
24. ibid., pp. 4-5; Linge, op. cit., p. 664, Table 14.7; 'Queensland Census of 1891', in Queensland Votes and Proceedings (QVP), 1892, vol. III.
25. W. G. Spence, Australia's Awakening, Sydney, 1909, p. 175. Spence's declaration was endorsed by a number of his contemporaries, most notably Gilbert Casey, 'A History of the Movement', in Worker, 22 July 1993; E. H. Lane, Dawn to Dusk, reminiscences of a rebel, Brisbane, 1939, pp. 12,54; Francis Adams, The Australians: A Social Sketch, London, 1893.
26. Lloyd Ross, William Lane andAhe Australian Labour Movement, Sydney, 1935, p. 240; Brian Fitzpatrick, A Short History of the Australian Labour Movement, Melbourne, 1944; Robin Gollan, Radical and Working Class Politics, Melbourne, 1960.
27. Gollan, Radical and Working Class Politics, pp. 127,150. Gollan's thesis that the initial radicalism of the labour movement was undermined by the victory of pragmatic Labor politicians had been earlier expounded by V. G. Childe, How Labour Governs, 1921. For a comprehensive study of the 'Old Leff historiography see A. Wells, The Old Left Intelligentsia, 1930-1960', in B. Head and J. Walter (eds), Intellectual Movements and Australian Society, Melbourne, 1988.
28. J. B. Dalton, The Queensland labour movement 1889-1915, BA Hons thesis, University of Queensland, 1961, conclusion p. 12; Robert McCraig, Labour Organisations and Objectives in Queensland 1890-1920, BA Hons thesis, University of Queensland, 1961, p. 4, also observed that 'class barriers until the advent of the strikes and depression were indistincf. Also Anna-Lea Cribb, The Maritime strike of 1890 with special reference to Brisbane, BA Hons thesis, University of Queensland, 1974; Crook, op. cit.; R. J. Sullivan, The ALF in Queensland 1889-1914, MA thesis, University of Queensland, 1973, pp. 323, 422-23. An earlier thesis which contributed to the ideas of the revisionist school was S. A. Rayner, The evolution of the Queensland Labour Party to 1907, MA thesis, University of Queensland, 1947. Abridged versions of a number of these theses were later published in Murphy, Joyce and Hughes (eds), Prelude to Power. Also R. J. and R. A. Sullivan, The Pastoral Strikes, 1891 and 1894', in D. J. Murphy (ed.), The Big Strikes: Queensland 1889 1965, Brisbane, 1983, pp. 97-8. This Queensland revisionist school's critique of the 'Old Left' was broadly in agreement with a similar critique being developed in New South Wales by Bede Nairn, Civilising Capitalism: The Labour Movement in New South Wales 1870 1900, Canberra, 1973.
29. D. J. Murphy, 'Queensland', in D. J. Murphy (ed.), Labor in Politics: the state Labor parties in Australia 1880-1920, p. 129.
30. D. J. Murphy, Trade Unions', in Murphy (ed.), The Big Strikes, p. 33.
31. ibid, pp. 34,37. Also see Murphy, Joyce and Hughes (eds), Prelude to Power; Murphy, Joyce and Hughes (eds), Labour in Power; D. J. Murphy, T. /. Ryan: a political biography, Brisbane, 1975.
32. Colin Hughes, 'Labour in the electorates', in Murphy, Joyce, and Hughes (eds), Labour in Power,.p. 83; Ronald Lawson, Brisbane in the 1890s: a study of an Australian urban society, Brisbane, 1973, p. 79. These findings by Lawson partly contradicted Crook's early thesis on Brisbane social relations during the 1880s, with Crook being more prepared to acknowledge the emergence of class divisions during this period. Overall, however, Crook substantially endorsed the thesis that class divisions were not central to urban politics during this period of Queensland history.
33. Verity Burgman, In Our Time: Socialism and the rise of labour 1885-1905, Sydney, 1985, p. 177; Stuart Svensen, The Shearers' War, Brisbane, 1989, pp. 256,258; Stuart Svensen, Industrial War: the Great Strikes 1890-94, Wollongong, 1995.
34. 'Census of 1861', in QVP, 1862, pp. 393 ff.; Queensland Times, 11 October 1861.
35. Ross Johnstone, Brisbane- the first thirty years, Brisbane, 1988, p. 27; Queensland Times, 11 October 1861.
36. Queensland Times, 4 February 1862.
37. 1870. as 'hard as shoe-leather _ and tainted strongly of sulphur'. See Courier, 24 February
38. 'Census of 1871', in QVP, 1872,965 ff.; Queensland Times, 1 February 1873; 'Census of 1891', op. cit.
39. Courier, 3 February 1979; D. B. Waterson, A Biographical Register of the Queensland Parliament 1860-1929, Canberra, 1972, pp. 41-2,60,64; Ipswich Heritage Consultancy Team, Ipswich Heritage Study, Ipswich, 1992, vol. 3 (Ref. 23.1049.0133) and vol. 4 (Ref. 72.2070.0001).
40. Courier, 17 April 1865.
41. Queenslander, 21 November 1868.
42. Patrick CKSullivan (MLA for Stanley), Queensland Parliamentary Debates (QPD), vol. xxix, 1879, p. 138.
43. William Kellett (also MLA for Stanley), ibid, p. 142.
44. ^Sullivan, ibid, p. 139.
45. ibid.
46. Queensland Times, 19 March 1870,26 January 1886; Queenslander, 17 July 1869; Courier, 11 November 1871,28 September 1872,17 October 1877. Most of the store-keeping families had members on the Board of Directors of the Woollen Mills. These included John Macfarlane and James Cribb, as well as James Foote. See Waterson, A Biographical Register, pp. 41-2,60,64.
47. Waterson, loc. cit. A number of these seats, such as Ipswich, were dual member seats.
48. The census of 1891 revealed that approximately half the Ipswich population were non conformist Protestants, followed by 2,755 members of the Church of England and 2,336 Roman Catholics. See QVP, 1892, vol. III,.p. 987.
49. Queensland Times, 8 October 1861.
50. 'Evangelical Standard', cited in Courier, 3 February 1879.
51. Waterson, A Biographical Register, pp. 41-2,64; Queensland Times, 13 July 1886.
52. ibid, 21 January 1886,21 May 1887.
53. Courier, 3 February 1879.
54. QPD, 1879, vol. xxix, p. 139.
55. 'Report of the Select Committee on the workings of the Railway Workshops', in QVP, 1879, vol. 2, pp. 538-9.
56. W. F. Morrison, The Aldine History of Queensland, vol. 2, Sydney, 1888, pp. 513-7
57. ibid, p. 513.
58. Queensland Times, 22 January 1887,8 February 1887; Boomerang, 14 April 1888,23 February 1889.
59. Whitmore, Coal in Queensland: the late nineteenth century, pp. xvii, 84-6,139, p. 141.
60. Queensland Times, 27 March 1886.
61. ibid, 31 March 1887.
62. Ipswich Heritage Study Consultancy Team, op. cit., vol. 1, Ref: 2.25,2.26 & vol. 3 Ref: 06.0039.0004,06.1039.0006.
63. Whitmore, Coal in Queensland: the late nineteenth century, pp. 93-94.
64. David Phillips and Robyn Buchanan, Ipswich: Views from the Verandah, Ipswich, 1993, pp. 14,20;.Robyn Buchanan, Ipswich Heritage Trails: Top of Town and Roderick Street, Ipswich City Council, 1993, Items 41-45,54,64-71.
65. ibid; 22-3,44-5; Robyn Buchanan, Ipswich Heritage Trails: Limestone Hill, York Street and Queens' Park, Ipswich City Council, 1993, Items 15,16,5.
66. Queensland Times, 6 December 1861,27 January 1870.
67. 'Minutes of evidence to the Royal Commission into Shops, Factories and Workshops', in QVP,.1891, vol. .2, Part II, 1120-22 at Q.14063.
68. Queensland Times, 6 December 1861,27 January 1876,5 January 1886.
69. 'Minutes of evidence to the Royal Commission into Shops, Factories and Workshops',, Q.14139. In rdernning the 1878-79 Seamen's strike - a strike that many Queensland employers supported because it was directed against Chinese workers - Robert Cribb declared, in a similar vein, that: 'the eternal principles of _ the law of supply and demand will always _ prove infallible.' See Courier, 13 December 1878.
70. Buckley, op. cit., p. 25; 'Minutes of Evidence of the Select Committee into the Queensland Immigration Department in Great Britain', in QVP, 1867, vol. 2, pp. 63 ff. at 103, Q.48. Brisbane metal trades' employers did not meet to considerintroducing the eight hour day until February 1865. Despite pressure from the journeymen, this reduction in hours does not appear to have been granted. See Courier, 13 February 1865,25 February 1865,9 March 1865.
71. Monthly Reports of the British ASE, 1880-1894, especially 'Letter to Mr Allen, ASE General Secretary, from James Suett on behalf of the Ipswich ASE, October 1865', January 1866,21. S44. Noel Butlin Archives (NBA), Australian National University; ASE, Ipswich Branch Minutes, 28 May 1888,16 October 1889, NBA, E162/28/2; 'Minutes of evidence on the workings of the Railway workshops', in QVP, 1879, vol. 2,609, Q.1737-41;.'Minutes of evidence on the workings of the Railway workshops', in op. cit., 564, Q.439. As late as 1912 the Ipswich branch of the ASE was still opposed to any formal ties with other unions in the workshops. See ASE, Ipswich Branch Special General Meeting Minutes, 1 February 1912. E162/28/2. NBA.
72. Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs' General Advertiser, 29 May 1883.
73. Queensland Times, 5 August 1886.
74. Worker, 1 April 1890.
75. Boomerang, 18 October 1890,1 June 1889,10 August 1889,18 January 1889.
76. Waterson, A Biographical Register, p. 192; QPD, 19 July 1894,52 ff. at 53.
77. Boomerang, 1 January 1890; Worker, 1 May 1890.
78. Daddow, op. cit., 100.
79. Worker, 8 August 1891; Boomerang, 18 April 1891,14 November 1891,9 January 1892.
80. Courier, 14 June 1861,8 August 1861; Whitmore, Coal in Queensland: the first fifty years, pp. 75-6; Whitmore, Coal in Queensland: the late nineteenth century, pp. 52-3,69; Queensland Times, 28 September 1886.
81. Queensland Times, 17 April 1886,23 May 1886,24 August 1886,31 August 1886.
82. Correspondence Thomas Glassey to his sister, Sarah Thompson. Glassey papers,
83. OM64.002. John Oxley Library, Brisbane (JOL).
84. Queensland Times, 31 August 1886.
85. ibid,.6 November 1886,28 September 1886.
86. ibid, 6 November 1886,7 December 1886.
87. Worker, 18 October 1890.
88. Queensland Times, 26 February 1887.
89. Boomerang, 6 October 1888.
90. ibid, 23 February 1889.
91. ibid, 14 April 1888; Thomas Glassey, Bundamba election manifesto, 28 March 1888. Glassey Papers, OM64.002, parcel 17. JOL; Worker, 17 April 1896. Murphy claims that Glassey ran 'against the official liberal and the Mcllwraith candidates' at the request of the local miners. See Murphy, 'Queensland', in Murphy (ed.), Labour in politics, p. 135. This may be technically accurate, but he undertook this action only after his previous Liberal Party political ambitions had been thwarted.
92. Courier, 15 May 1888,16 May 1888.
93. Ipswich Advocate, 23 January 1895.
94. Queensland Times, 24 December 1892; Worker, 18 October 1890; Boomerang, 18 October 1890,7 February 1891.
95. Whitmore, Coal in Queensland: the late nineteenth century, pp. 96-100,75-77; Worker, 17 April 1896; Courier, 15 May 1893. Glassey was subsequently returned for the seat of Bundaberg.
96. Courier, 15 May 1888,15 May 1893.
97. Ipswich Advocate, 30 March 1894,2 April 1894; Courier, 2 April 1894.
98. QPD, 19 July 1894, pp. 52-53.
99. Ipswich Advocate, 13 May 1895.
100. 23 May 1896.
101. ibid, 23 May 1896,8 May 1893.
102. ibid, 15 May 1893.
103. ibid; Worker, 26 January 1895.
104. Courier, 23 March 18%.