People Australia

Catherine Flood Davies, née Duggan (1875-1957) Labor party activist, community worker

Birth: 1875 at Dawson River, Queensland, daughter of John Duggan [or Duggar], butcher, and Ann, née Thornton. Marriage: 5 July 1897 at St Stephen’s Anglican Church, Bourke, New South Wales, to Leyshon [‘Joe’] Davies (1893-1947), a miner born in Rhymney, Monmouthshire, Wales. They had two daughters and one son. Death: 14 April 1957 in a nursing home at Strathfield, Sydney. Religion: Catholic. 

• Worked as a domestic servant in Bourke, NSW, before her marriage.
• Two children were born at Nyngan, the elder dying while an infant. A third child was born in 1900 at Bourke.
• In 1913 her husband was a miner and Catherine a storekeeper in Orange, NSW.
• Appointed a justice of the peace in February 1928, when she was living in Stanmore.
• In September 1928 she was treasurer of the Enmore-Stanmore group of the Women’s Organising Committee, formed to campaign for Labor in the electorate of Lang.
• Mrs Davies was a stalwart worker for the poor. During the timber-workers’ lockout she was secretary of the Enmore ladies’ relief committee in July 1929 and hosted a house party to raise funds at her home at 16 Liberty Street, at which some 150 sympathisers and supporters attended.
• Moved to Summer Hill in 1930 and became secretary of that branch of the Australian Labor Party. Was active in election campaigns for the next decade.
• In October 1931 she also became honorary secretary of the city hostel for homeless, unemployed women and girls in Sussex Street.
• Cause of death acute cardiac failure, arteriosclerosis and broncho pneumonia.