People Australia

John Edward Egerton Anderton (c.1864-1903) hairdresser, tobacconist and Socialist

Birth: about 1868 at Liverpool, England, son of Samuel George Anderton, mechanical engineer, and Mary Ann, née Reynolds. Marriages: (1) 8 October 1900 at Sydney, New South Wales, with Anglican rites, to native-born Angelina Elliott (1866-1900), a brickmaker’s daughter, who signed with a mark. (2) 1901 at Sydney to native-born Rose Rosenberg (1887-1961), a factory worker. They had one daughter, aged 4 months when Egerton died. His widow remarried in 1906 and 1954. Death: 14 September 1903 at George Street, Sydney. Religion: Anglican. 

• Arrived in New South Wales in 1881. Was a peddler in 1897 when arrested for obstructing the footpath. From about 1899 to his death was a tobacconist trading as American Tobacco Company, and hairdresser, in George Street, Sydney.
• May have been the J. E. Anderton who was founding member of the Australian Socialist League, Sydney, in 1887 with William Macnamara and others. Also spoke in a single-tax campaign in 1890.
• Cause of death: chronic nephritis.

Sources
Verity Burgmann, In Our Time: Socialism and the Rise of Labor, 1885-1905, (Sydney, 1985).