People Australia

Ted Englart, 1948

Tribune (Sydney), 21 August 1948, p 1

Edward Conrad (Red Ted) Englart (1897-1982), waterside worker, trade union official and gaoled Communist 

Birth: 1897 at Toowoomba, Queensland, son of Queensland-born parents Heinrich [Henry] Englart (1856-1936), farmer and staunch Labor supporter, and Elizabeth, née Nuss (1862-1941). Marriage: 1919 at Brisbane to Catherine (Kate) Ryan. They had two daughters and five sons. Death: 26 February 1982 in hospital at South Brisbane. 

• Of pioneering farming stock. His grandfather Wilhelm Andreas Englert (1832-1897 (born in Dertingen, Baden-Württemberg) had migrated from Germany in 1850s working as a shepherd for £12 a year plus tea, sugar, flour and meat.
• Ted left the family farm to work as a labourer and waterside worker, joining the Waterside Workers’ Federation (WWF) in 1919. In 1928 he joined the Communist Party of Australia and was involved in a strike that year as a ‘relentless pursuer of scabs’. He was subsequently victimised.
• Supporter of Jim Healy in WWF, became vigilance officer of Brisbane branch 1938-43 and secretary, Brisbane branch, 1943-1950. Twice jailed for industrial activities in 1948 Queensland railway strike, and was active during waterside workers’ support for Indonesian independence, also meat strike.
• Among industrial achievements was introduction of Smith freezer boot, displacing toe rags. Retired from waterfront, 1970.
• Lifelong communist and “character in his own right. Always wearing shorts, long before shorts became permissible wear. Always selling Tribunes or Guardians or anything else from the Party”.
• Cause of death: cardiorespiratory arrest and bilateral bronchopneumonia. His body was received at the School of Anatomy, Brisbane.
• His son Vince was active in the Builders’ Labourers’ Federation and the CPA.

Sources
Ross Fitzgerald, The People’s Champion, Fred Paterson: Australia’s only Communist Member of Parliament, (Brisbane, 1997); John Playford, Doctrinal and strategic problems of the Communist Party of Australia, 1945-1962, PhD thesis, ANU, 1962; Maritime Worker, 22 Sept 1969, April 1982, May 1982; Railway Advocate, September 1988; Tribune (Sydney), 17 March 1982; ‘Ted Englart - The workers will win’ MSS and correspondence at www.takver.com.