People Australia

Robert Melrose (or Melross) Mathers (1882-1961) civil engineer, architect and trade union official

Birth: 13 March 1882 at Shotts, near Edinburgh, Lanarkshire, Scotland, son of James Mathers (1852-1911), a timekeeper, later welfare worker, born at Lurgan, Armagh, Northern Ireland, and Margaret, née Dixon (or Melross?) (1856-1950), born at Bathgate, West Lothian, Scotland. Marriage: 7 December 1911 at Sydney, New South Wales, to Florence Teasdale (‘Boodie’) Smith (1892-1965), born in Melbourne. They had two sons. Death: 15 October 1961 at Royal North Shore Hospital, St Leonards, Sydney: usual residence Hapden Road, Artarmon, Sydney. Religion: Presbyterian. 

• Arrived in New South Wales with his parents in 1897. His father worked for a time for a bridge-builder then was for fourteen years a well-known city missionary at the Rocks, Sydney.
• Robert took up architecture and engineering in Sydney, where he served his articles. Spent some time in the New Zealand Government Railways Service.
• Returned to Sydney in 1908 and entered the Public Works Department, where he worked as a draftsman.
• Transferred to NSW Railways. Honorary general secretary of the NSW Public Service Professional Officers’ Association (PSPOA) in 1916.
• Union delegate to Commonwealth and State Services Confederation which comprised a league of approximately fifteen large public service organisations in 1918-1919. President of the confederation in 1918.
• Prominent in gaining favourable amendments to the Superannuation, Arbitration Amendment and Public Service Acts of 1919 through his advocacy with the Holman and Storey Governments and J. Garland, the then Attorney-General.
• New railway professional officers’ union formed in 1921 by gaining federal registration as the Association of Railway Professional officers of Australia (ARPOA) and subsequent federal coverage for NSW Railway professional offices. Mathers became became president of the NSW branch of the ARPOA in 1922.
• Profession shown as architect or civil engineer in electoral rolls from the 1930s.
• Cause of death: primary carcinoma of the pharynx (months).
• Robert’s wife and mother-in-law were Theosophists. His two sons enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force. The elder son James Bruce Mathers (1912-1943), a draftsman, was promoted to sergeant and was killed in a bombing raid on Bremen, Berlin, on 26 June 1943. The younger son, Squadron Leader Barcroft Melrose Mathers DFC, (1914-1980) was shot down and captured in August 1944 and held as a prisoner of war in Germany. He later joined Qantas Airlines.

Sources
Greg Patmore, A history of industrial relations in the NSW Government Railways (PhD thesis University of Sydney, 1985); Public Service Professional Officers’ Association Journal, 1926 pp.6-10.