People Australia

Edward Holliday (1873-1904) clerk, Socialist and political activist

Birth: 3 March 1873 at Manchester, Lancashire, England, son of John Holliday (1846-1923), a carpenter, born at Langrigg, Cumberland, England, and Mary, née Owen (1853-1883). Unmarried. Death: 12 May 1904 at Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane; usual residence Dornish Terrace, West End, Brisbane. 

• Arrived at Cooktown, Queensland, aboard the Nuddea on 15 November 1883 with his widowed father and seven siblings.
• His father, ‘Dad’ Holliday, was a lifelong member of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners and a leading member of the Australian Labor Party.
• Edward was a founding member in 1896 of the Queensland Socialist League (QSL). Succeeded Ernie Lane as QSL secretary in January 1897.
• Prominent in Queensland Social-Democratic Vanguard in 1900.
• A member of the South Brisbane Workers’ Political Organization, after Australian Federation he was a founding member of the Oxley Federal WPO, becoming joint honorary secretary with R. S. Ross in 1900 and was later a trustee.
• He represented the Queensland Central Political Executive at the inter-State Political Labour Conference held in Sydney in December 1902.
• An operation early in May 1904 was unsuccessful. Cause of death: renal calculus, operation intestinal paralysis.

Sources
Verity Burgmann, In Our Time: Socialism and the Rise of Labor, 1885-1905, (Sydney, 1985).