Prince William

Protestants

The Loyal Orange Lodges and the Labour Movement of Newcastle and the Lower Hunter

Part One 1870-1914

Tony Laffan

In this and following articles it is my purpose to explore the relationship between the Loyal Orange lodges of Newcastle and the lower Hunter, and the labour movement. The time period to be examined is from 1869 when stable long term lodges of the Loyal Orange Institution emerged in the Hunter until the defeat of Catholic Action in the Labor Party during the 1950s.

The theme of the articles will be that for this period of roughly eighty years there was a deep and intimate relationship between Loyal Orange lodge brothers (and sisters) and the labour movement, an assertion which is contrary to a number of well established assumptions about the Australian labour movement. The evidence for Orange affiliations of labour activists is quite remarkable in number and variety.

This first essay will deal with the period prior to World War One. Subsequent articles will cover important events such as the Great Strike of 1917 and the Conscription crisis, the Protestant Independent Labour Party, the 1929-30 coal mine lockout and the economic Depression of the 1930s as well as the role played by Orangemen in the challenges posed to the labour movement by the Communist Party and Catholic Action.

The term 'Orangemen' encompasses members, mainly men in the period covered by this essay, of the Loyal Orange Institution [LOI] and the Royal Black Preceptory. The LOI lodges were a political expression of the evangelical non-conformist Protestant churches. In Newcastle almost 60 % of the population gave these churches as their denomination on census forms. Local lodges of the LOI took form during the reaction to the attempted assasination of the Duke of Edinburgh by an Irishman at Clontarf Park Sydney in 1868 and drew further strength from the 1870 controversy over 'free, compulsory and secular' state education in NSW.

Like many community organisations of the time the LOI was based on fraternal forms. LOI lodges initiated their members through degrees and met in secret. District and State (or Grand) lodges were restricted to members who possessed the higher degree. Initially male only, the LOI instituted female lodges from 1898 onwards. In addition to lodge meetings the LOI held frequent public gatherings such as processions, church services and socials. Consequently the LOI was also a public organisation with its main members visible to the community.

The Hunter lodges of the LOI had, from the mid 1870s, over a thousand members in the lower Hunter. It maintained this level until the 1930s with several shorter periods when membership exceeded 2000. Associated with the LOI was the Royal Black Preceptory, or RBP, a related organisation which only admitted members of the LOI who held its third degree.

The oaths taken by Orangemen (and women) required them to vote for Protestant candidates and to resist the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in politics. The oaths did not however imply adherence to only one political party or philosophy and there could be very divergent paths followed by the brothers and sisters. They were zealous in their safeguarding of the Protestant religion and clearly saw Australia as part of a British Empire headed by a Protestant monarch.

Most lodge members believed that it was not only possible but desirable to legislate for virtue. Among the lodge members' favourite causes were temperance, local option, anti-gambling as well as a firm commitment to Sabbath observance with no paid sport on Sundays. In regions such as Newcastle with an overwhelmingly working class electorate also counted as virtuous causes were an 8 hour working day, state enforced safety conditions in coal mines and early closing on Saturday night for shops. Orangemen were frequently identified with these causes although not all Orangemen would agree on each particular issue. Likewise they were conspicuous in the benefit societies and retail co-operatives of Newcastle and the northern coalfields.

For the period before the emergence of the Labour Electoral Leagues in 1891 there are numerous examples of labour activists who were Orangemen. Amongst the region's largest union, that of the coal miners, many of the elected positions, both at a lodge and district level, were filled by Orangemen. This is well illustrated by the miners' lodges of the Adamstown-Merewether area from the 1870s onwards. At the Glebe lodge W.Newburn, J.Gregory and E.Jones held senior lodge and delegate positions, and were well known, publically identifiable officials in local Orange lodges.

James Birrell, James Fletcher and Henry Rushton, all members of LOL 31 (LOL = Loyal Orange Lodge, with each lodge having a number) were conspicuous in the meetings held during 1877 to establish the NSW Reform League at Wallsend. Initiated locally as a 'labour league' this was a project of several organisations including the Miners' Association and the Sydney Trades and Labour Council.

Shortly afterwards, during the 1878 Seamens strike over the introduction of Chinese labour, an Orangemen, Alderman W Richardson, chaired the Newcastle public solidarity meeting and Orangeman Alderman J Hubbard moved the main resolution. Likewise at Wallsend LOL 31 member and miners' lodge activist R Youll moved the main resolution. In 1879, LOL 88, Waratah, Secretary and Methodist lay preacher, Peter Jacobson was among those charged with intimidation of strikebreakers.

In the early 1880s Orangemen can also be found in the committees set up to co-ordinate trade union efforts such as 8 Hour demonstrations. Rail worker, Hamilton Mayor and Orangeman, W.Manuell was chairman of the Newcastle Labour League 8 Hour committee in 1884.

We also find significant numbers of Orangemen in the early moves to establish the Labour Electoral Leagues following the 1890 Strike. At least two of the first Labour parliamentarians elected in 1891 had Orange connections. Alf Edden MLA had given the main lecture at a social to celebrate July 12 (the Battle of the Boyne) at Cooks Hill in 1886. J L Fegan MLA was to be a frequent platform speaker on Orange platforms for the next three decades, having been acting Secretary of the Colliery Employee's Federation during the 1890 strike. J D Jenner, Worshipful Master (WM) of LOL 141 and later District Master, was chairman of the Wickham LEL in 1893. Jenner's fellow Wickham alderman Bill (W H) Fountain was a tram driver and a union activist who was an important stump orator for the LEL during the elections of the 1890s and a lifelong member of LOL 26. At Singleton, a Hunter Valley electorate that contained the two mining townships of Greta and Branxton, W Burnett was the first LEL candidate standing in the 1894 election and was among the best known members of LOL 105.

Continuing into the new century, Richard Tyson the President of the Adamstown PLL and of the Kahibah PLL Electorate Council was WM of LOL 28 Adamstown. James Dart, as well as being President of the Newcastle Political Labour League (as the LEL had been renamed) was Deputy Master of LOL District No. 4 (Newcastle). Ald R Webber was President of Wickham PLL while also being WM of LOL 132 Tighes Hill . Senator David Watson, originally from Wallsend but later a resident of Kurri, had been Deputy Master of LOL 258. George Cornish, Secretary of the Newcastle Society of Carpenters and Joiners was also a member of LOL 26. T R Scott WM of LOL 258 was President of the Colliery Engine Drivers. Thomas Allanson Delegate for the Sea Pit miners' lodge and Vice President of the Newcastle 8 Hour committee was a Sir Knight in Royal Black Preceptory 666 and hence a member of the LOI. W Littlefair president of the Ebbw Vale miners' lodge and a member of the Delegate Board was also a Sir Knight from RBP 557. Frank Parsons, Checkweighman for Dudley miners' lodge, was a member of LOL 249. Charles Steadson, Trustee for the 8 Hour committee, was a member of LOL 177 Hamilton. C.Yearby, T.Rutherford and B.Saunders provide evidence of a continuing Orange presence in the executives of miners' lodges in the Adamstown area.

It was not for nothing that the annual July 12 (Battle of the Boyne) procession formed up at the Trades Hall. Indeed LOL 26 used the Trades Hall as its lodge room. At the highest local Orange level, LOI No 4 District Lodge, the Worshipful District Master for 1907-08, W Dennett, was elected Newcastle President of the Brickmakers' Union in 1912. He was also very active in the PLL.

These examples are far from exhaustive. They are based on newspaper reports not membership lists and, I believe, only represent a fraction of the cross links between the LOI and the PLL. It is this deep inter-relationship between the membership of the LOI and the PLL which leads me to question the interpretations of historians such as Richard Broome and later writers such as Michael Hogan and Jeff Kildea. Broome argues on page 111 of his book Treasure in Earthen Vessels, that the relations between Protestantism and Labour, which had never been particulary bright, were finished by 1900. Catholicism was aligned with Labour and the remnants of the Progressives, on the one hand, while Protestantism was identified with non-Labour on the other.

It is true that Fegan left the LEL over the caucus issue in 1894, Jenner appearing to leave at the same time with Fountain and Burnett leaving in 1899 over concern about the growing friendship of Cardinal Moran for the PLL. But even with these and other examples the local PLL remained heavily influenced by Orangemen as several incidents reveal.

One such incident took place over the years 1899-1902. Waratah MP and PLL member Arthur Griffith took a strong stance against what he saw as an 'imperialist adventure' in South Africa, speaking bitterly of the suffering unleashed by British policy. With his friend WM Hughes, he advocated a 'nationalist' as distinct from an 'imperialist' concept in defence. His support of a pro-peace petition in January 1902 infuriated many Orangemen and women within the labour movement. Within weeks, Richard Tyson presided at a protest meeting of 150 PLL members from the Kahibah electorate which passed a resolution condemning Griffith and backing General Kitchener in South Africa. Alf Edden, MLA and Dave Watkins, MHR publically condemned Griffith. Griffith fought back. He published an anti-Boer War pamphlet written by the British radical John Hobson. His supporters also rallied and at the Northern District Assembly of the PLL the numbers were very even. The assembly voted to condemn the petition by seven to five but also declined to be involved in the public meetings called to censure Griffith. This vote was also seven to five.

The LOI endorsed the Rev R Bowles as a Reform (or Liberal) candidate for the Federal seat of Newcastle in 1902 but the majority of Orange members in many suburbs actually voted Labor. This was most notable at Adamstown where 'Mr Labour' (as the Newcastle Morning Herald Adamstown correspondent referred to him), Richard Tyson, and most of his fellow Orangemen voted against their District WM and supported Watkins. They were not seen as being less 'Orange' for having worked and voted for the PLL. In the mining townships about Newcastle the identification of Protestants, including non-Orangemen, with the non-Labor parties was far from total.

The importance of Orangemen in the labour movement can also be seen in a district wide series of referendums held by the Colliery Employees' (or Miners') Federation (CEF) throughout 1907 when the miners' lodges voted on the adoption of the IWW preamble for a new state-wide miners' union then being formed. Peter Bowling, the District President and militant socialist, spoke at many lodges for this proposal. His opponents included many LOI members who were unhappy with this new concept of industrial unionism and its emphasis on class warfare. Among the most vocal critics was Dave Watson, a former WM of LOL 329, who argued that arbitration and state legislation were crucial to the miners and who maintained the continuing validity of the slogan 'a fair day's pay for a fair day's work'. Watson was ably backed by William Laird and William Muir in a letter writing campaign directed at the local newspaper. Both were active Orangemen and Minmi miners' lodge leaders. They were also well supported by another Orangeman, the Rev Thomas Davies, who had taken a public position in support of the miners' campaign against shiftwork involving as it did Sunday work and who used his pen against revolutionary unionism.

The industrial unionists lost the district vote by 3900 to 2154. In the months following this vote the Glebe miners' lodge, with a number of Orangemen in its leadership, carried a number of resolutions disagreeing with the CEF's opposition to the Arbitration Court. Yet in late 1909 these differences had to be set aside due to an intense industrial struggle which further demonstrates the strength of the relationship between Orange and labour.

The 'Peter Bowling' strike of 1909-1910 involved some 10,000 miners for upwards of three months. Under a series of management assaults on working conditions in an industry facing increased competition from oil the mine workers fought a defensive general strike provoked by the sacking of a union delegate. While the strike was defeated the sheer degree of solidarity displayed by the miners meant that the employers could not carry their agenda. Such a defensive strike ensured the full and active participation of LOI members despite the fact that Peter Bowling was a nominal Roman Catholic and an advocate of 'direct action'. There was no evident sectarianism during this strike although there had been when Bowling was first elected to a leadership position in the CEF. At Adamstown William Littlefair, a Sir Knight of the RBP and member of the CEF Delegate Board moved the strike resolution. Littlefair did so with regret but pointed to the near unanimity of the Delegate Board. Like Bowling, Littlefair went to gaol for his active leadership of this strike.

At Kurri, Dave Watson provides another example of an Orangeman in the local union leadership. Watson was a Baptist lay preacher and frequently used the words 'come let us reason together' rather than stressing irreconcilable class warfare. The central demand of the Bowling strike had been for an open conference with the employers to discuss grievances while the men remained on stike. Watson and many lodge activists, who had no trouble with that aim , did not accept that the workers and the employing class had nothing in common. Watson was also on the Delegate Board, he helped organise local relief committees, he raised funds and he spoke at rallies as did his wife. Late in January 1910 ten weeks into the strike the combined Loyal Orange lodges of Kurri and Weston marched in a 'strike procession' with full regalia to a local park where a free picnic was provided for the children of striking miners.

While many Protestant religious ministers were cool and cautious towards the strike there was no lack of solidarity among Orangemen in the broader community. Alderman R Webber (LOL 132) was vocal in moves to have local councils organise relief for strikers' families. In the local co-operative stores there was no question of withholding aid. At least two directors of the Newcastle and Suburban Co-operative were LOI members. Both voted to give credit to the miners through their union lodges.

The strike's defeat had a devasting impact on Bowling's career. Dave Watson was judged to be a better leader for difficult times. He was elected President of the district union by a rank and file vote in December 1910. He stressed the legal possibilities open to the miners, namely arbitration and electoral sucess for the PLL and went on to become a PLL Senator in 1914. He and other LOI members continued to argue their case and to participate in the factional disputes of the labour movement.

Any theories that fail to link Protestants and Orangemen with the labour movement of the Lower Hunter are simply unrealistic and do not match the available evidence.