People Australia

Jones, Edward (1864-1915) coalminer and trade union activist

Birth: 1864 at Geelong, Victoria, son of Edward Jones, miner, and his wife Elizabeth. Marriage: 6 August 1891 at Fitzroy, Melbourne, with rites of the Victorian Free Church, to a miner’s daughter, native-born Elizabeth Ann Champion (1863-1944), assistant. They had four sons and one daughter. Death: 13 March 1915 at Melbourne Hospital. Religion: Anglican. 

• Was a labourer living in Melbourne at his marriage in 1891.
• His daughter and three sons were born at Korumburra, Victoria, between 1896 and 1904.
• Activist in co-operativist faction of Victorian Coal Miners' Association (VCMA) but also corresponded with members of the Legislative Assembly sympathetic to labour.
• Present at early VCMA protest rally in 1896. Unsuccessful candidate for VCMA presidency 1898. VCMA representative in 1902 but does not appear to have played a prominent part in 1903 Victorian coal strike.
• After strike probably worked in Silkstone Co-operative Colliery.
• Reports of a court case in March 1905 described him as “one of the oldest Coal Creek Union hands”. He had attempted to prevent his daughter Ada, a domestic servant at the home of Patrick McDonald, the manager of the Coal Creek Mine, from marrying a free labourer, whose brother had prevented him from obtaining work at the mine.
• Still resident at Silkstone, in South Gippsland district, in 1914.
• Described as a farmer residing at Korumburra on his death certificate. Cause of death: “sciatica and acute dilatation of stomach”. Buried in Korumburra cemetery.

Sources
Great Southern Advocate; Outtrim News; Korumburra Times; 1906 Victorian Royal Commission into Coal Industry; 1903, 1906, 1908 and 1909 Victorian electoral rolls; ; P. D. Gardner, Too old to rat: the radical miners of South Gippsland 1893-1904 (Ensay, Victoria, 1994).