People Australia

James Richard (Jim or Jimmy) Oliver (1890-1937) miner, trade unionist and Communist activist

Birth: 13 July 1890 at Plattsburg, Wallsend, New South Wales, son of English-born parents Richard Oliver (b.1867), blacksmith and miner, and Sarah, née Coxon (b.1873). Marriage: reputedly  had a relationship with [first name unknown] Jones and they had one daughter. Death: 10 June 1937 in Wallsend district hospital, Wallsend, NSW. Religion: Methodist. 

• Was a miner living with his parents and siblings at Hope street, Plattsburg, Newcastle, in the 1913 electoral roll.
• Described as a wheeler, he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 1 December 1915. His brother, Les, was killed in action, serving with the 56th Battalion, on 2 December 1916 in France. Jimmy was wounded in action in France serving with the 35th Battalion, on 14 March 1917, losing one eye. Then worked on the medical staff before returning to Australia. He was discharged in Sydney on 5 February 1918.
• On returning home Jimmy worked as a medical orderly before returning to the mines, only to be retrenched at the onset of the Depression. Had occasional work building a road near Dorrigo and relief work for the Lambton Council, but remained underemployed for the remainder of his life, surviving on a meagre war pension and on fruit from his small orchard.
• Joined his miners lodge and the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) in the late 1920s but it was during the Depression that he emerged as a public figure. In 1931 he helped organise the unemployed, becoming District President of the Unemployed Workers’ Movement (UWM) and its delegate to the Newcastle Trades Hall Council. With participation in UWM anti-eviction campaign and Tighes Hill eviction Riot of 1932 and attempting to negotiate a compromise with the police, he was thrust into the public eye.
• His bashing in the ensuing conflict and his subsequent arrest and trial gave him martyrdom status among the unemployed, whom he continued to support through helping the Workers International Relief and providing individual advice to anyone who sought his assistance.
• Although he failed in a campaign for election to the Wallsend Council in 1934, he was elected to the District Committee of the CPA in the mid-1930s.
• Was a war pensioner. Cause of death: auricular fibrillation, mitral regurgitation and chronic endocarditis.
• Oliver was accorded one of the largest funerals seen in the Newcastle district, with 1500 processors and thousands of mourners lining the route. The Flag on the Wallsend Town Hall was even flown at half-mast to mark the passing of the champion of the unemployed.
• A memorial committee raised funds after his death for his family, left “in straitened circumstances”. In August 1938 a tablet to his memory was unveiled at Newcastle Trades Hall.

Sources
Ross Edmonds, In Storm and Struggle. A History of the Communist Party in Newcastle 1920-1940 (1991); Workers Weekly (Sydney), 11 & 15 June 1937.