People Australia

George Moate, caricature by Dick Ovenden, 1923

Labor Call (Melbourne), 1 March 1923, p 3

Gilbert Ernest (‘George’) Moate (1891-1969) seaman and trade union official

Birth: 18 September 1891 at South Melbourne, Victoria, son of native-born parents George Richard Moate (1861-1944), wood carver, and Ethel Ellen, née Tite (1869-1969). Marriage: 5 September 1914 in the Congregational manse at Fitzroy, Victoria, to native-born May Florence Willox (1894-1979), a milliner. They had a daughter and a son. Death: 27 October 1969 at Kew, Victoria. 

• Began his working life as a Herald newsboy in Melbourne. Was employed in a Victorian timber mill in 1907 and early in 1908 went to sea.
• Back on land in 1915, took a job carpentering at the Caulfield Military Hospital. Active in anti-conscription campaigns in 1916 and 1917. Went back to sea. Acquired an extensive knowledge of the South Sea Islanders and their customs.
• In 1916 was elected assistant secretary of the Marine Stewards and Pantrymen’s Association of Australia. In 1921 was elected general president.
• Prominent in the Australian Labor Party conference in 1922. Newspaper references wrongly describe him as a brother of Sydney-based Archie Moate, sometime secretary of the marine stewards’ union.
• An “energetic supporter of Labor’s new Objective”. Responsible for the trade paper The Marine Stewards Journal.
• Cause of death: bilateral lobar pneumonia.

Sources
Daily Herald (Adelaide), 28 March 1924, p 2.