People Australia

Caroline Marcella Nicholson, née Cox, also known as Coleman (1859-1938) school teacher, Labor organiser, trade union official, Socialist and Communist 

Birth: 21 September 1859 at Amherst, Victoria, daughter of George Cox (1828-1871), a compositor and sometime newspaper proprietor, born in Somersetshire, England, and Caroline, née Gillespie, late Cox (1835?-1914), born in Cork, Ireland. Marriage: 15 March 1902 in the office of the Government Statist, at Melbourne, to Malcolm Nicholson [or Nicolson] (1851-1908), a grazier, born at sea off Brisbane, Queensland, of Scottish heritage. They had no children. Death: 3 November 1938 at Riversdale Road, Box Hill, Melbourne; usual residence Millgrove. 

• The death of her father left the family in poverty requiring a subscription to pay for his funeral. In 1873, at Smythesdale, Victoria, her mother married John Francis Coleman (1829-1911), a surveyor and civil servant, born at Waterford, Ireland. Caroline took her stepfather’s name.
• Before her marriage, Caroline Coleman was employed by the Department of Public Instruction from 1887 as a teacher at the state school at Wa-de-lock, in the Maffra district, where she was secretary of the committee to build a Mechanics’ Institute and Free Library in 1891. The death on 15 April 1908 at Gippsland Hospital, Sale, of her husband from tuberculosis “after three years intense illness”, left her a widow with time, property and funds to enable her to be politically active.
• She lived at Footscray with her mother from 1909. That year she joined the Labor Women’s Central Organising Committee (LWOC), organised the women in the Mansfield district and was appointed lady organiser for the Australian Labor Party in Corio where she founded a strong branch of the LWOC.
• In 1911 she was honorary secretary of the Women Workers Union, Victoria. She joined the Australian Socialist Party in 1913 and became a trustee of Melbourne branch of the ASP. In 1912-1919 Footscray electoral rolls she was described as a journalist.
• Nicholson was a member of the Labor Women's Political, Social & Industrial Council during World War I.
• In 1918 she represented the ASP on the Prisoner Release Committee. formed to agitate for the release of imprisoned Industrial Workers of the World members.
• She was a founding member of the Melbourne branch of Communist Party of Australia on its reformation in 1924. Was a member of the strike committee to provide financial assistance during the 1925 seamen's strike.
• In Victorian electoral rolls from 1919 she was described as a teacher, living at Milgrove.
• Cause of death: carcinoma of pancreas and cachexia (months).

Sources
Labor Call, 16 March 1911; Joy Damousi, Socialist Women in Australia, c.1890-c.1918, Ph.D thesis, ANU, 1987.