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George Dawson (1865–1959)

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Amalgamated Engineering Union Interstate Conference, Melbourne 1927

Amalgamated Engineering Union Interstate Conference, Melbourne 1927

Dawson is second from the left in the top row

George Dawson (1865-1959) pattern-maker and trade union leader 

Birth: 9 January 1865 at Snowfields, Bermondsey, London, England, son of William Mark Dawson (1827-1875), licensee of the Miller of Mansfield Tavern, Lambeth, and his de facto wife Martha Ann Bell, née Hunt (1828-1871). Marriage: 22 January 1898 in Hobart, Tasmania, with Congregational forms, to Hobart-born Emma Matilda Ford (1878-1928). They had one son. Death: 19 February 1959 at Henley, Sydney, New South Wales. Religion: Anglican. 

  • Baptised with three of his siblings in the parish of St Mary, Lambeth, on 16 August 1874.
  • Orphaned by the age of ten, George, a pattern-maker, aged 16, and a brother and sister were living with his widowed aunt in Lambeth, London, in 1881.
  • He arrived in Brisbane, Queensland, aboard the New Guinea, as an assisted immigrant, on 17 August 1885. By 1898 he was a pattern maker in Hobart, Tasmania.
  • Dawson was a pioneer of the trade union movement in Tasmania. In 1913 he was the Hobart branch secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers [later Amalgamated Engineering Union, and in the following 14 years ‘rendered faithful and efficient service to the union’.
  • He was also founding director Hobart Trades Hall building and a prominent member of Hobart Trades & Labor Council, secretary of Hobart 8 Hour Committee and representative at Sydney conference.
  • After the death of his wife, retired to Sydney in 1928 to live with his son, also a pattern maker, who died in 1944, and his family.
  • Cause of death: cerebral haemorrhage, hypertension, arteriosclerosis and congestive heart failure.

Sources
AEU CC Monthly Report, 1928; A.E.U. Monthly Journal, April 1959.

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Citation details

'Dawson, George (1865–1959)', People Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://peopleaustralia.anu.edu.au/biography/dawson-george-32686/text40597, accessed 29 March 2024.

© Copyright People Australia, 2012

Amalgamated Engineering Union Interstate Conference, Melbourne 1927

Amalgamated Engineering Union Interstate Conference, Melbourne 1927

Dawson is second from the left in the top row

Life Summary [details]

Birth

1865
London, Middlesex, England

Death

19 February, 1959 (aged ~ 94)
Henley, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Cause of Death

stroke

Cultural Heritage

Includes subject's nationality; their parents' nationality; the countries in which they spent a significant part of their childhood, and their self-identity.

Religious Influence

Includes the religion in which subjects were raised, have chosen themselves, attendance at religious schools and/or religious funeral rites; Atheism and Agnosticism have been included.

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