People Australia

Barney Lynch, n.d.

Bernard Vernon (Barney) Lynch (1906-1959) postal worker and trade union official

Birth: 25 August 1906 at Gawler, Tasmania, son of native-born parents Bernard Aloysius Lynch (1883-1962), storekeeper, and Ellen Teresa, née Stubbs (1878-1956).  Marriage: 7 May 1938 in St Mary’s Catholic cathedral, Hobart, to Kathleen Bridget Landsell (1907-1990), born in Hobart. They had two sons. Death: 20 May 1959 in Calvary hospital at Sandy Bay, Tasmania; usual residence Duke Street, Ulverstone, Tasmania. Religion: Catholic. 

• Elected to first Council of the Tasmanian Postal Institute. Original member of Promotions Appeals Committee. Secretary of the Amalgamated Postal Workers’ Union of Australia, Hobart sub-branch. Assistant secretary, Amalgamated Postal Workers’ Union of Australia, Tasmanian Branch.
• Secretary-Treasurer, Amalgamated Postal Workers’ Union of Australia (APWU), Tasmanian Branch from 1942 to 1951 part-time, full-time 1951 until his death.
• Represented branch at annual conferences of union. Member of the federal executive. Tasmanian representative for the fourth division on appeals against punishment.
• Member of the Australian Labor Party from 1921.
• Representative for the fourth division to Board of Inquiry, Tasmania, in 1950. Represented case to Parliamentary Select Committee on Price Control on behalf of Hobart Trades Hall Council. Represented APWU as delegate to Hobart Trades Hall Council. Member, executive council of Hobart Trades Hall. Member, disputes committee, Hobart Trades Hall.
• “A dedicate supporter” of the Catholic Social Studies Movement, was a leader of the Industrial Groups in Tasmania.
• Active in State-wide league football, tennis and rowing. He and his wife were prominent in Catholic associations including the Catholic Lawn Tennis Association. His wife was State secretary of the Catholic Women’s League.
• Cause of death: cirrhosis of the liver, chronic biliary obstruction, post-operative shock and haemorrhage.

Sources
Postal Advocate, 21 August 1950, 21 April 1954, May 1959 p 1 Vol.34 No. 5; Frank Waters, Postal unions & politics; a history of the Amalgamated Postal Workers’ Union of Australia [Denis Murphy, ed.] (Brisbane, 1978), pp 123, 145 [photo] and 278.