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Isaac Jermyn (?–?)

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Isaac Jermyn (?-?) pastoral labourer, gaoled strikers’ camp organiser

Birth: details unknown, reputedly in Ireland. Death: details unknown. 

  • Semi-literate labourer working in Queensland by the late 1880s. He may have been the Isaac Jermyn, agricultural labourer, who was one of the immigrants aboard the Corona which left Plymouth on 17 July 1882 and arrived in South Australia on 21 October 1882. Joined the Queensland Labourers' Union in October 1889.
  • Was Active during the 1891 shearers' strike. In March 1891 he persuaded strikers at Charleville to move camp to a more suitable location, then organised a new camp with wide streets, each with a double row of tents, cooking messes, a store and butcher's shop, and ration card system.
  • Went with Michael Fanning and others to Oakwood station, possibly planning to blow up a station woolshed. On about 24 April 1891 he was arrested on charges of intimidation, arson and unlawful assembly. In 24 April 1891 he was rearrested and was not released from custody until 31 May 1891. Labor politician Thomas Glassey later reported that Jermyn was “eleven times before the court but in every single instance the police failed to obtain a conviction. When the men cheered him the Riot Act was read, and the men were threatened to be shot down”.
  • His whereabouts thereafter are unknown.

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

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Citation details

'Jermyn, Isaac (?–?)', People Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://peopleaustralia.anu.edu.au/biography/jermyn-isaac-34091/text42750, accessed 8 November 2024.

© Copyright People Australia, 2012

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