Eight Hour Procession 1901, Sydney
Eight-Hours Day, Sydney, Labour Movement, Trade Unions, carnival, Trade Union, trade unionism, procession, parade, processions, parades, ‘Merrie England’, craft guild, guild, guilds, craft, medieval origins of eight-hours day, carnival, Professor J.E. Thorold Rogers, Agincourt, Poitiers, Golden age of labour, labour, labourer, work, worker, workers, labourers, Charles Jardyne Don, stonemasons; King Alfred as originator of eight hours rest, sleep and recreation, Tooth’s brewery, Sydney, New South Wales, NSW
The writer credits the craft guilds of medieval England for the eight-hour system, including the Saturday half-holiday. The latter was supposed to be devoted to archery practice, which eventually ensured English mastery of the bow and arrow and their successes at Agincourt and Poitiers. Later in the article, King Alfred is cited as the originator of the divided day: sleep, work and recreation.
Although the eight-hour movement was won in Melbourne in 1856 after the stonemasons working on the construction of the University of Melbourne marched to the Government House, the writer asserts that it was won in Sydney in 1855 for the Tooth’s brewery workers.
O'Sullivan, R.W.
National Library of Australia
The Sydney Morning Herald
7 May 1901
National Library of Australia
Newspaper Article; PDF
English
Labor Day Procession in Argent Street, Broken Hill
banner, banners, Broken Hill, float, floats, Labor, Labor Day, labour, labourer, New South Wales, NSW, parade, parades, procession, processions, street parade, trade, trade union, trade unionism, trades, union, unionism, unions, work, worker, working class
<p>A photograph from c. 1911 of a large crowd lining Argent Street in Broken Hill to watch a Labor Day procession of men carrying union banners.</p>
<p>Union banners have a medieval predecessor in the banners used by guilds (an association of craftsmen in the same trade), with each guild having a banner to show their trade. Some historians consider trade unions to be the successors of medieval guilds.</p>
<p>For an example of recreation medieval guild banners from 1909 in York see <a href="http://www.theyorkcompany.co.uk/find_out_more/page020104.php" target="_blank">http://www.theyorkcompany.co.uk/find_out_more/page020104.php</a></p>
Anon.
State Library of South Australia
State Library of South Australia
ca. 1911
State Library of South Australia
Hyperlink
English
Eight Hours Song
Knights of Labor, Labor songs, sabre, Eight Hour Day, eight hours, union, unionism, Trade Union, Trade Unionism, labour, labourer, work, worker, working class, unions, Felix McLaren
Working or labour songs were a feature of nineteenth century (and later) union gatherings and processions. The songs and communal singing evoke peasant or folk traditions. The song gives the workers the high-ground because they resort to moral rather than bellicose means to gain the Eight Hours Day. They are proud to declare they did not shed blood for their ‘crown’.
Transliteration from Trove [HH]
All hail to the Knights of Labor!
All hail to the Eight Hours Day!
Far better than wielding the sabre,
Is your peaceful and grand display.
Your banners float proudly over
To tell how your cause was won
Since the time when your day would cover
From rising to setting sun.
But do not forget you have brothers
Who toll in the midnight’s gloom,
Or sisters, perchance, or others
Who are wasting their youthful bloom;
Who sweat when they world is sleeping,
To win starvation’s meat,
With no relief save weeping –
Their lot is hard indeed.
All hail to our glorious Union!
Success to the A.M.A.!
That fought like brave and true men
Till they gained the Eight Hours Day.
No sanguine conflict marred the strife,
‘Twas moral force alone
That gained the glorious victory
That might adorn a throne.
McLaren, Felix
National Library of Australia
5 October 1898
Public Domain
Newspaper, Labour Song
English
SA Register 1888 Thurs 26 April Carnival of King Labour
King Labour, Eight Hours Day celebration Melbourne, tinsmiths’ armour, trade processions, streets celebrations, medieval guilds, references to Ivanhoe, Richard Coeur de Lion, Don Quixote, battle-axes, Friendly Societies’ Gardens, carnival, carnivalesque, labour, worker, work, labourer, class
Report on the Eight Hours Day procession in Melbourne in 1888. The article describes the vivid and essentially working-class flavour of the skilled trades procession and after-picnic in Melbourne. The tinsmiths’ knightly armour invokes literary and historical figures of the past. The novel Ivanhoe was set in the twelfth century but was written by Sir Walter Scott in the early nineteenth century; Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes is a seventeenth-century novel. Richard the Lionheart or Richard I of England was a twelfth-century warrior king. The author’s idea about what constitutes ‘the medieval’ is heavily mediated by popular fictions and depictions of their time.
E.D.C. South Australian Register
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">National Library of Australia</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><strong><span><a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47270284">http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47270284</a></span></strong></p>
26 April 1888
Public Domain
Report; Hyperlink
English
King Working-Man
Eight hour day, Eight-hour day movement, freedom of labour, Peasants Revolt, organized labour, labour, labourer, work, worker, working class, Premier Gilles, unions, union, unionism
This illustration portrays the great fear of the establishment in the late nineteenth century in Australia, an organised workforce. Union organisation and affiliation and the strengthening of fraternities and friendly societies appeared to create a monster. King Working-Man, with tin crown emboldened with the symbol of the eight-hour movement on it, with working man’s garb and hobnailed boots, lounges on his humble wooden throne clasping a sceptre. Premier Gilles is his attendant while wool, timber, shipping and sugar magnates grovel at his feet.
poss. ‘Tom’ Carrington (Francis Thomas Dean Carrington)
Punch Magazine, Melbourne
Punch Magazine, Melbourne
18 August 1887
Public Domain
Newspaper Illustration; Hyperlink
Female Servant’s Revolt
Melbourne 888, Eight-hour day movement, freedom of labour, women servants, Peasants Revolt, revolution, Melbourne, Eight hour day, working class, labour, work, labourer, worker
This illustration is an early reference to the beginnings of the eight-hour movement. One of the first marches took place in Melbourne in 1856, when the Stonemasons working on the build of the University of Melbourne, marched to Parliament protesting their long hours and harsh working conditions. It echoes the Peasants’ Revolt in the late fourteenth-century when, after the plague, workers threatened to give their labour to the highest bidder, and move to different regions. [HH]
Poss. ‘Tom’ Carrington
Punch Magazine, Melbourne
Punch Magazine, Melbourne
28 April 1859
Punch Magazine, Melbourne
Newspaper Illustration; Hyperlink
Trades and Industrial Hall and Literary Institute Association of Sydney’s Illuminated Address presented to Thomas Bavister, 1906.
associations, carpenter, Christmas Bells, commemoration, flannel flowers, flowers, 'Illuminated Address', illuminated documents, illumination, Literary Institute, New South Wales, outstanding service, politician, Sydney, Sydney Heads, Thomas Bavister (1850-1923), tools, Trades and Industrial Hall and Literary Institute Association of Sydney, trade union, trade unionist, Trades Hall, tradesman, wattle, worker, workers
An illuminated address presented to Thomas Bavister, trade unionist and politician, by the Trades and Industrial Hall and Literary Institute Association of Sydney to recognise his service to the association. Illuminated addresses were a popular way to commemorate events or committed service in the late Victorian period. The address reads “Presented to Thomas Bavister, Esq. In recognition of his services as chairman of the above association from February 9th 1906 to August 8th 1906†and is signed by the serving Chairman and Secretary. It is surrounded by watercolour drawings depicting a male worker (possibly a carpenter) with his tools on the left, and insets of Sydney Heads, Trades Hall, and a Literary Institute building. It is also decorated with drawings of native flowers such as wattle, flannel flowers and Christmas Bells.
Anon.
Picture Australia/State Library of New South Wales
Trades and Industrial Hall and Literary Institute Association of Sydney
1906
State Library of New South Wales
Hyperlink
Meatworkers in the Labor Day March in Toowoomba
procession, processions, parades, parade, labour, work, workers, worker, working class, Labor Day, suits, banner, banners
Procession halted in front of the Toowoomba Hall. Labor Day parade celebrates the eight hour working day. Processions with banners were a feature of the later medieval period. The metalworkers' banner has a medieval predecessor in the banners used by guilds (an association of craftsmen in the same trade), with each guild having a banner to show their trade.
Anon.
State Library of Queensland
John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland
ca. 1910
John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland
Hyperlink
English