People Australia

Laurence Jeremiah (Laurie) Jarmson (1888-1982) carpenter, builder, trade union official and Communist

Birth: 5 December 1888 at South Voxter, Cunningsburgh, Mainland, in the Shetland Islands, Scotland, son of Laurence Jarmson (1840-1889?), fisherman, and Elizabeth, née Jarmson (1846-1929). Marriage: 1921 at Wallsend, Newcastle, New South Wales, to native-born Ellen (Nellie) Williams (1888-1974). They had one daughter and a son who died in childhood. Death: 11 October 1982 at Mackay, Queensland. 

• Trained as a carpenter before migrating to Australia. Joined the Social Democratic Federation on the Shetlands in 1907. Arrived in Sydney aboard the P & O liner Beltana on 4 July 1913.
• Worked first at Newcastle and then in the Northern Territory where he was active in the Carpenters Union and was elected branch secretary at Darwin in about 1916.
• By 1921 he had returned to Newcastle, and become involved in the formation of a branch of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA). The following year he was one of the branch delegates to the second Annual Conference of the CPA. In 1922 he was elected branch president of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners and remained associated with the union.
• During the Depression he was unable to find work for about three years. He survived by keeping fowls and growing vegetables on some vacant land at Toronto. He also became active in the Unemployed Workers Movement and taught classes in Marxism and Marxist Economics. Was vice-president of the local Workers’ Educational Association.
• In about 1934 Laurie found work with a builder at Gunnedah for about twelve months. He then returned to the Newcastle district, as the building trade had begun to revive.
• Jarmson was Secretary of the Newcastle May Day Committee in the late 1930s and early 1940s and was active in the peace movement. He helped to form a branch of the Spanish Relief Committee and served as its secretary.
• Returned to the Northern Territory during World War II and worked with the Allied Works Council before coming back to Newcastle.
• His wife Nellie was a talented artist.
• Late in life he returned for a visit to Shetland, noting the great changes caused by the discovery of oil. After his wife’s death he lived with his daughter.

Sources
Ross Edmonds, In Storm and Struggle. A History of the Communist Party in Newcastle 1920-1940 (1991).