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slightest pretext, and 12 (the
St Helena 12) sentenced to 3
years by Judge George Harding
in Rockhampton on the catch-
all charge of conspiracy.

Judge George Harding
The strike was called off in
June, another followed with
no better success in 1894, but
a revolution did indeed occur.
The strike propelled labour into
politics, and in 1899 Anderson
(Andrew) Dawson formed the
world’s first Labor government
in Queensland, if only for a
week.
In 1904 John Watson be-
came Australia’s and the world’s
first Labor Prime Minister.
My full article is in issue 20 of
History Queensland Magazine
(Boolarong press Brisbane).

Unionist prisoners sentenced at Rockhampton, Qld., May 1891.
Back row: (Left to Right) : H.C. Smith-Barry; W. Fathergill (later Chairman of the Barcaldine
Shire Council), A Forrester, J.A.Stuart (aka the poet “Curlew”),
Second back row: (L. to R.): G. Taylor; (later Speaker of the West Australian Legislative Coun-
cil), P. F. Griffin; E. H. Murphy; H. O. Blackwell, Third back row: (L. to R.): A. J. Brown; R.
Prince, W. P. Bennett; D. Murphy
Front row: William Hamilton (later President of the Queensland Legislative Council).

Author, Anthony Hammell

Police evict shearers Hughenden Qld., 1891.
by pay well above going rates, stockpiled rifles. Incidents such down, telegraph lines cut, large
whom unionists tried to convert as the ‘Clermont riot’ occurred grass fires lit, and scabs or
through ‘moral persuasion’. and unionists arrested. blacklegs and wool wagons pro-
The Queensland govern- Unionists were dispersed tected by armed troops.
ment sent 2000 soldiers and po- at the point of the bayonet or Henry Lawson wrote ‘Free-
lice, including the ‘specials’ to sword. The Eureka flag was dom on the Wallaby’ in support The Tree of Knowledge, April
hotspots. The unionists drilled prominently displayed in some of the shearers. Altogether 245 2000 before it was poisoned by
with sticks in military style and camps, five wool sheds burnt unionists were jailed on the unknown vandals.

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