People Australia

John Bishop Griggs (1824-1886) bricklayer and trade union official

Birth: 1824 at Elm, near Wisbeach, Cambridgeshire, England, son of William Griggs (1777-1850?), bricklayer and Sarah or Mary (maiden name unknown). Marriage: 16 September 1850 at the parish Church of St James, Westminster, Middlesex, England, to Hannah Amilia (Amelia) Betts (c.1822-1894), a publican’s daughter and a dressmaker, also born at Wisbeach, Cambridgeshire. They had one son. Death: 16 May 1886 at his residence in Provost Street, West Hotham (North Melbourne), Victoria. Religion: buried with Wesleyan forms. 

• In 1851 John, 23, a bricklayer, and Amelia, 25, a dressmaker, were living at Marylebone, London
• They arrived in Victoria about 1856. He is listed as a bricklayer, qualification freehold at Warrick Street, claiming to be entitled to vote in Melbourne in June 1856.
• Griggs was a founder and president of the Bricklayers’ Society, Melbourne in 1856.
• Trustee, Trades Hall from 1874 to 1886. President, Trades Hall Council for several years.
• Pioneer of the Eight Hours movement. President of the 8 Hours Committee in 1871-1872, 1874-1877 and 1879-1880.
• Employed as foreman by Martin & Peacock, contractors and ‘assisted in the erection of many of the handsome buildings which adorn the principal streets’ of Melbourne.
• Member of Loyal Alliance Lodge, No. 4561, Manchester United Independent Order of Oddfellows, Hotham.
• Cause of death: Erysipelas.
• His portrait was among the first to hang on the walls of the old Trades Hall in Lygon Street, Carlton, demolished in 1921.

Sources
W. E. Murphy, H. J. Gibbney & A. G. Smith, A Biographical Register 1788-1939, vol 1 (Canberra, 1987); Age (Melbourne), 18 May 1886; Merrifield papers, State Library of Victoria.