People Australia

Nellie Alice Hook, née Absalom (1890-1969) Labor activist

Birth: 12 December 1890 and baptised on 25 January 1891 at All Saints Church, Southend-on-sea, Essex, England, daughter of William Absalom (1837-1901), oyster merchant, and his second wife Harriet, née Nicholls (1859-1908). Marriage: 1917 at Liverpool, New South Wales, to Christopher Young Hook (1883-1968), soldier, labourer, later lantern operator, born at Clerkenwell, London, England. Death: 9 June 1969 at Campsie, Sydney, New South Wales, usual residence Blairgowrie street, Dulwich Hill, Sydney, N.S.W. 

• In 1911 Nellie, 17, was living at Prittlewell, Essex, with her widowed half-sister Emma and Emma’s family and working as shop assistant to a draper.
• She had arrived in Sydney with a brother Henry William, a builder, and sister Mary by 1913 and that year was living with them at Dulwich Hill.
• Her husband had served in the British Army — Royal Artillery — for eight years and arrived in Australia about 1910. He became a militant Communist. From 1923 until defeated in 1926 he was an organiser then secretary of the NSW branch of the Federated Miscellaneous Workers’ Union.
• Nellie joined the Australian Labor Party when the timber workers were on strike (1929) and assisted Labor women in setting up canteens.
• She was a member of special committee set up during the Depression by the Labor Women’s Central Organising Committee (LWCOC)  to seek ways of housing homeless women.
• Treasurer of LWCOC from 1943 to about 1964. President, Summer Hill ALP Social Committee.

Sources
Information from Sue Tracey 1997; ALP Women Magazine Special Diamond Jubilee Issue, February 1964.