People Australia

William Miller, 1910

Labor Call (Melbourne), 21 April 1910, p 23

William Charles Miller (c.1854-1929) compositor and trade union official

Birth: about 1854 at Franklin, Tasmania, son of English-born John Henry Miller (1827-before 1878), cabinetmaker, and Harriet Eliza, née Ridley (1829-1904). Marriage: 1883 at Fitzroy, Melbourne, Victoria, to Adelaide Levy (1859-1932). They had seven daughters and three sons. Death: 19 March 1929 in the Alfred hospital at Prahran, Melbourne; usual residence Acland Street, St Kilda, Melbourne. 

• Apprenticed compositor with Mercury newspaper in Hobart.
• Moved to New South Wales and worked as a compositor in Sydney, Gundagai and Wagga Wagga. Shifting to Melbourne, he gained employment with Egerton and Moore and other printers.
• Worked for Victorian Government Printing Office (GPO) for about thirty years and became supernumerary compositor. Father of Chapel at GPO on numerous occasions.
• Member of the board of management of the Melbourne Typographical Society 1883. Union delegate to conference with master printers which led to the granting of an eight-hour day and increased wages. Member of the Eight-Hours Committee. Elected by Eight-Hours Anniversary Committee as life governor for Melbourne Hospital 1886.
• Representative for union on Trades Hall Council (THC). Member of THC in 1906 at least and became president. President of the Melbourne Typographical Society in 1908; Delegate to ARU conference in Brisbane in 1910.
• Vice-president of the Political Labor Council and during that time he was compelled by Premier Bent to sever his connection with PLC under penalty of dismissal from his employment in Government Printing Office.
• Nominated by Fitzroy branch of PLC in 1906 as a Labor candidate for selection at the following Senate election. Early member of the Jika Jika branch, and Labor candidate for State seat of Jika Jika (unsuccessful) in 1911.
• Associated with T. M. Burke in sales of land in Melbourne and Sydney. Member of the board of directors of the Civil Service Co-operative Society.
• Cause of death: cholelithiasis, cholaemia and pulmonary oedema.

Sources
Tocsin, 15 February 1906, p 4; Labor Call, 9 July 1908; Printing Trades Journal, April 9, 1929, pp 79-80.