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Revision as of 15:29, 31 October 2004 by Herschelkrustofsky (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)William Guthrie Spence was the founding father of the Australian Workers Union. He was born in 1846 on the island of Eday in the Orkneys off the coast of Scotland, and travelled to Australia with his parents in 1853. Soon thereafter he witnessed the rebellion at the Eureka Stockade, which is said to have had an important influence on the development of the the young Spence's ideas.
He became involved in union activism and was elected Secretary of the Amalgamated Miners'Association of Victoria (AMA) in 1882. He was involved in a number of other unions and in 1894, he was the driving force behind combining a number of unions to form the Australian Workers' Union. Spence assumed the office of Secretary and four years later, President.
In a book published in 1909 entitled Australia's Awakening, Spence wrote that "Unionism came to the Australian bushman as a religion. It came bringing salvation from years of tyranny. It had in it the feeling of mateship which he understood already and which characterized action of one man to another. Unionism extended the idea so one man's character was gauged by whether he stood true to the union - or scabbed it ... Rough and unpolished many of them may be; but manly, true and strong all the time and the movement owes them so much ..."