People Australia

Henry James (or Frederick) 'Harry' Jackson (1870-1929) shearer, trade union leader and hotelier 

Birth: 12 May 1862 in Moonee Ponds, Victoria, son of Henry Frederick Jackson, sea captain, who was born in Hull, England, and Wilhelmina, previously Cooper, née Dallas, who was born in Wick, Caithness, Scotland. Marriage: 29 August 1894 in Rockhampton, Queensland, to Mary Teresa Callaghan. They had three daughters and two sons. Death: 23 June 1929 in hospital at Warwick, Queensland. Religion: Catholic.

• His mother was a widowed grocer in Flemington when she died in 1880.
• Harry helped to manage a business with his uncle for two years.
• Employed as a labourer in work such as gold digging, navvying, lumping (wharf) and smelter work.
• Secretary of second Barcaldine Strike Committee, March-June 1891.
• Helped conduct strike after arrest of members of first committee on conspiracy charges in March 1891, replacing William Fothergill as secretary.
• A “man of some education and familiar with books,” he was close to John Payne, with whom he contemplated writing a history of the Labour Movement in Queensland.
• After the strike, was a shearer in Longreach for some years then licensee of hotels in various country districts of the State.
• Cause of death cerebral haemorrhage.

Resources
Stuart Svensen, The Shearers' War: the story of the 1891 shearers' strike (Brisbane, 1989).