People Australia

Edmund John (Eddie) Mara (1897-1976) coalminer and trade union official

Birth: 17 May 1897 at Kirkconnell, New South Wales, son of native-born parents Edmund Mara (1848-1920), miner, and Mary Ann Berry (1864-1944), nurse. Marriage: 1921 at Portland, NSW, to Ruth Wyntour Davies (1897-1971). Death: 25 September 1976 in hospital at Lithgow; usual residence Piper Street, Portland, NSW. Religion: Catholic. 

• Eddie worked as a miner at Ivanhoe, NSW. Member of committee of Ivanhoe lodge. Member of Western District Delegate Board at age of 20.
• Represented Western District at first national convention of Australasian Coal & Shale Employees' Federation in 1925. Elected vice-president of the federation's Western District in 1939, and was president from about 1945 to 1957. Elected Western District representative on federation's central council in 1927, retaining position until his retirement in 1957.
• Active in left-wing of Australian Labor Party before joining Communist Party in 1949, in protest at the Labor government’s strikebreaking.
• In May 1956 he attended the International Labor Organization Coal committee session at Istanbul, Turkey.
• Cause of death congestive cardiac failure.
• His brother George Joseph Mara (1895-1918), enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in 1916 and died [in the field] of bronchopneumonia on 26 November 1918.

Sources
Edgar Ross, A history of the Miners' Federation of Australia ([Sydney] 1970).