People Australia

Sylvia Harding, n.d.

Sylvia Harding, née Falconer, late Holley, also known as Asimo or Sylvia Xenodohos (1915-2011) stenographer, Communist and community activist

Birth: 10 August 1915 at 14 Lynch Street, Carlton, Melbourne, Victoria, and registered as Asimo, daughter of native-born parents Henry Falconer (b.1890), a general labourer, and Agnes Rachel Rosetta, née Simpson (1893-1972). Marriages: (1) 1936 in Victoria to native-born Arthur George Holley (1907-1984), a seaman. The marriage ended in divorce. (2) 3 June 1968 at the District Registrar’s Office, St Leonards, Sydney, New South Wales, to native-born Kenneth William Charles Harding (1906-1991), a carpenter. Death: 18 December 2011 at Sydney, NSW. 

• Her mother was the de facto wife of Nicholas John Xenodohos (1891-1964), a cook, born at Arachova, Boeotia. Greece. Nicholas Xenodohos, “authorised agent of 14 Lynch Street, Carlton”, was the informant on her birth certificate. On her second marriage certificate, Asimo (known as Sylvia), stated that Xenodohos was her father.
• The family moved from Melbourne to Sydney about 1921. Sylvia (Asimo) was educated at the Good Samaritan Convent, Newtown.
• Employed at the Hotel Australia, she became a member of the Hotel Club and Restaurant Workers Union, then worked in the office of the State Labor (Hughes-Evans) Party. She was an organiser in the Federated Clerks’ Union in 1942 and was later social secretary.
• In 1950 she became a member of the Bankstown branch of the Communist Party. After a period living at Coffs Harbour, where she and her first husband share-farmed tomatoes, she returned to Sydney in 1955 and worked in the Sydney branch office of the Seamens Union of Australia.
• She was active in the Union of Australian Women (UAW) and was its national secretary in 1970-1972, treasurer 1982 and national vice president in 1984.
• In November 1964 she reported on the work of the Seamen's Women's Committee to the National committee of the UAW. She was also prominent in the Building Workers Industrial Union’s women's committee.
• In 1984 she represented the UAW on the Women’s International Democratic Federation delegation to Vietnam for a seminar on 'Development and Happiness in South East Asia’. Her discussions with the Vietnam Women's Union led to the UAW preparing evidence to the Royal Commission on the effects of agent orange.
• Prominent in the UAW's anti-racist campaign in South Africa, supporting the African National Congress Women's League.
• Represented the UAW on the Australia-Vietnam Society and Cambodia Support Committee.
• On 11 March 1962 Harding was one of the “leading Communist women speakers”, including Flo Davis and Mavis Robertson, who addressed the International Women’s Day Rally in the Sydney Domain.
• In retirement she was active in the Combined Pensioners Association and was a founding member of the Older Women’s Network and of its theatre group. 

Sources
Barbara Curthoys and Audrey McDonald, More than a hat and glove brigade: the story of the Union of Australian Women (Sydney, 1996).