People Australia

Charles Murphy, n.d.

Charles McKenzie (Digger) Murphy (1919-2016) miner, trade union official and Communist

Birth: 13 July 1919 at Ipswich, Queensland, son of Queensland-born Percy Patrick [Ernie] Murphy (1894-1984), a coalminer at Moggill, and Margaret Wiseman, née Kilpatrick (1895-1984), born at Larkhall, Lanarkshire, Scotland. Marriage: 26 September 1942 at Silkstone Baptist Church, Ipswich, to native-born Joyce Evelyn Hosking (1921-2014). They had three daughters. Death: 23 September 2016 at Ipswich Hospital, Qld. 

• Digger Murphy’s maternal grandfather Charlie Kilpatrick was a miner, trade union official and parliamentarian.
• His father had been a miner at Ipswich, then worked at the Collinsville State mine until 1931 when the pit in which he was working, Moggill, was flooded — he then moved back to Ipswich and went on the dole and finished his working life in the Ipswich railway workshops.
• In boyhood Charlie lived at Collinsville, where he was educated. In 1929 he moved to Ipswich and worked at a sawmill after leaving school. He became a miner at Woodend (New Ebbw Vale) colliery on the West Moreton field in 1935. Was lodge chairman at the age of 17 (1936) and remained chairman there for the next twenty years. Obtained mine deputy's certificate in 1954.
• In 1957 he was elected district check inspector for the Colliery Employees’ Union (Miners' Federation) Queensland (CEU), in succession to veteran Jack Pocock. He was joined as district check inspector in 1959 by Ronald James Murphy [no relation].
• In 1964, replacing Bluey Millar, ‘Digger’ was elected Queensland district president of the CEU, a position which had been held by his grandfather Charles Kilpatrick (1871-1935), who had been the union’s first full-time president. During his time in office two of Queensland’s worst mining disasters occurred, at Box Flat in July 1972 — after which Murphy was member of the panel of four assessors appointed to the official inquiry — and Kianga No 1 Colliery in September 1975.
• Elected federation general vice-president in March 1979, replacing Arthur Treglown. Retired from both union positions on reaching the age of sixty in July 1979. Widely respected as a reliable, conscientious official.
• His wife Joyce had a long record as a leading stalwart of the West Moreton Auxiliary. This body’s members made up most of the Black Diamond Theatre Group, which produced concerts and revues in which performers included ‘Digger’ and Ron Murphy.
• ‘Digger’ Murphy was a member of the Communist Party of Australia, then Socialist Party of Australia. He was a Miners' Federation delegate to the Soviet Union in 1969. In the December 1977 elections to the Australian Senate he stood as a SPA candidate for the State of Queensland. 

Sources
Pete Thomas, Miners in the 1970s: a narrative history of the Miners’ Federation (Sydney [1983]) and The coalminers of Queensland: a narrative history of the Queensland Colliery Employees Union. Volume 1 Creating the traditions (Ipswich, 1986); photo, retirement, Common Cause (Sydney), 11 July 1979, p 2.