People Australia

George Chitty Baker (1858-1942) printer and trade union leader 

Birth: 22 May 1858 in Guildford, Surrey, England. Son of Frederick Samuel Baker, compositor, and his wife Elizabeth. Marriage: 1884 at Burrowa, NSW, to Emily Gunter French (d.1954). They had three sons and three daughters. Death: 20 July 1942 in Perth. Religion: Anglican. 

• Educated at Guildford Grammar School, then worked for six years with Waterlow & Sons. To Sydney, 1879, where he was in business as a printer and publisher.  
• In 1890 moved to W.A. becoming foreman of the Record. Editor of Agricultural Journal, 1900-11 later joined Baker, Carrick and Co., engineers.
• Leader of the Typographical Society in Western Australia, Secretary of W.A. Trades and Labor Council, with George Foster Pearce, the most notable leader of Western Australian labour movement in the 1890s.  He was opposed to using the strike as a weapon.
• Failed to win elections as parliamentary candidate, 1894, being sole Progressive Political League (PPL) candidate and losing North Fremantle; also failed in 1897.
• Member of South Perth Municipal Council.

Sources
H. Vanden Driesen, ‘Confrontation and Reconciliation on the Waterfront: The Fremantle Lumpers Strike, 1899’, in Labour History, 1981, vol 40, pp. 29-48; H. J. Gibbney & A. G. Smith, A Biographical Register 1788-1939, vol 1 (Canberra, 1987); West Australian (Perth), 22 May 1940, p. 11, 9 Sept 1954, p.32.