People Australia

Samuel Bird (1868?-1928?) coal miner, check weighman and trade union official

Birth: possibly the Samuel Bird born on 4 March 1868 at West Ballarat, Victoria, son of Joseph Bird (1828-1915), a miner born at Penrith, Cumberland, England, and Mary, née Quinlan (1840-1891) born at Kilkenny, Ireland. Unmarried. Death: (?) 2 April 1928 in hospital at East Melbourne, Victoria. 

• In 1893 was a founding member and foundation president of the Coal Creek Miners' Association (CCMA), Korumburra.
• In 1896 was a member of the foundation committee, Victorian Coal Miners' Association (formed by amalgamation of CCMA & two other lodges).
• In 1898 president of Jumbunna lodge; also check weighman and check inspector for Jumbunna branch 1898.
• A miner at Jumbunna, formerly check weighman, he was a witness at the action of John Martel in May 1903 against the VCMA.
• In 1908 he was still listed as a miner at Jumbunna; appears to have gone to NSW coalfields after this date.
• May have been the Samuel Bird, 41, woodcutter, who was burned in a fire in his tent at Jumbunna on 23 July 1912 and taken to Melbourne Hospital, and possibly the Samuel Bird, labourer, later miner, who lived in Melbourne from 1914 and died of tabes dorsalis, from which he had suffered for years, and broncho pneumonia.

Sources
Great Southern Advocate; Outtrim News; Korumburra Times; Edgar Ross, A history of the Miners' Federation of Australia ([Sydney] 1970); P. D. Gardner, Too old to rat: the radical miners of South Gippsland 1893-1904 (Ensay, Victoria, 1994); information from E. Ross, 1990.