People Australia

Thomas (Tom) Owen (1860-1943) coal miner, check weighman and trade union official 

Birth: 12 June 1860 at Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan, South Wales, United Kingdom, son of Edward Owen (1821-1901), miner, and Elizabeth, née Phillips (1834-1871). Marriage: 1883 at New Lambton, New South Wales, to native-born Mary Ann Rollings (Rawlings) (1865-1957). They had two daughters and four sons. Death: 8 December 1943 in his residence at Russell Road, New Lambton, Newcastle, NSW. Religion: buried with lay Methodist forms. 

• Arrived in Australia with his parents and younger brother in late 1861.
• Resided at Merewether, Minmi and later New Lambton where he lived for seventy years.
• Started work with his father at New Lambton Colliery at age of nine. Was Check-weighman at South Waratah Colliery for fifty-four years and secretary of his [miners’] lodge for fifty-three years. Retired in 1938.
• Took a keen interest in formation of the New Lambton municipality and became auditor for the council.
• Interviewed in 1938 he recalled his life and times in the Newcastle mining districts. He did not wear glasses; gardening was his hobby. He had never tasted strong drink in his life. “Two factors which had enabled him to spend nearly 70 years in the industry . . . [were] his total abstinence and the fact that he was fortunate to get away from the coal and get healthier work as check weighman”.
• “He lived 55 years on the one site in Russell-road, a modern home having replaced the old wattle and daub, slab and German brick structure which was his first home there.”
• Member of Loyal Hamilton Lodge and Loyal Thistle Lodge of Oddfellows'.
• Was an old age pensioner at his death. Cause or death cerebral thrombosis (2 days) and chronic myocarditis.

Sources
Common Cause, 8 January 1944, p 8.