People Australia

Frank Macdonald Syme Kelsall (1874-1951) linotype operator and trade union official 

Birth: 1 April 1874 at Broughty Ferry, Angus (now in Dundee), Scotland, son of Walter Kelsall (1833-1879), sergeant-major in the Royal Artillery, and Emma, née Aabon or Arbon (1840-1918). Marriages: (1) 22 December 1896 at the Catholic Cathedral, Perth, Western Australia, to Catherine Murrow (1872-1955). They had three daughters and two sons. The marriage ended in divorce in 1918 after Catherine was committed to an asylum. (2) 30 November 1918 at Perth to Jessie Josephine Wilhelmina Howells (1881-1943). (3) 13 May 1944 at Perth to Eva May Austin or Merritt (1883-). Death: 22 June 1951 at Mt Hawthorn, Perth, usual residence Addison Street, South Perth, WA. Religion: Catholic. 

• Family migrated to New Zealand about 1875. Frank was apprenticed compositor/printer at Waipawa Mail, 1887. Transferred to Woodville Examiner and the Napier Evening News. Joined Knights of Labour about 1892. Was a member of the Wellington Typographical Society in 1895.
• Arrived in Western Australia in 1895 to work as a hand compositor for the Kalgoorlie Miner. Secretary of the Kalgoorlie committee for Brunner Relief Fund following mining disaster in New Zealand in 1896.
• Formed short-lived Kalgoorlie assembly of Knights of Labour in 1898. Foundation member of Kalgoorlie & Boulder Typographical Society and became secretary and later president, 1897.
• Foundation member of Goldfields Trades and Labour Council.
• Chair of directors of the Westralian Worker from 1900. Transferred to Perth in 1913 to work on the paper which was moved there a year earlier.
• First part-time secretary of the Printing Industry Employees’ Union of Australia (PIEUA) WA branch, following merger of Perth and Goldfields Typographical unions 1917 to about 1921 and councillor of the WA branch.
• Assisted in successfully negotiating through private arbitration for 44 hour-week, seven paid holidays, one week’s annual leave and wage rise in 1919. Federal president of the PIEUA in 1920-1921. Union representative on Industrial Board which framed the State Jobbing Award in 1928; member of the board of management.
• Was Independent Labor and Progressive candidate for the Legislative Council Metropolitan-Suburban province in May 1922. Contested selection ballot for the seat of Perth in Federal parliament in 1924, and the Mt Hawthorn seat in State Parliament in 1929.
• President of the Progress Association. Appointed justice of the peace in November 1925.
• Wrote series of articles in the Western Argus under the by-line ‘Typo’ and had a regular column in the Westralian Worker under title ‘Printers pie’. Retired in 1946.
• Cause of death: arteriosclerotic uraemia (weeks), and arteriosclerosis (years).

Sources
D. J. Murphy (ed.), Labor in Politics: State Labor Parties in Australia, 1880-1920 (St Lucia, Qld, 1975); Verity Burgmann, In Our Time: Socialism and the Rise of Labor, 1885-1905, (Sydney, 1985); Printing Trades Journal, September 21, 1920, p 206-207, November 1924 p 205, May 1944, July 1946, July 1951; Brunner relief fund - Kalgoorlie Miner 14 and 23 May 1896; Knights of Labour - Kalgoorlie Miner 17 August 1899, p.7; ALP papers 1688/ 385 election pamphlet dated 1922: vs. Whitbread.