People Australia

John Robert Thistelton Portwine (1810-1881) cordwainer and trade union official

Birth: 14 January 1810 in Kent, England, son of George Portwine (1760-1811) and his second wife, Susanna, née Thisleton (1770-1846). Marriage: 17 October 1848 at Gawler, Adelaide, South Australia, to Mary Ann Donisthorpe (or Denisthorpe) (1820-1921), born at Calais, France. They had ten children, who all survived him according to his death certificate. Death: 3 May 1881 at Specimen Gully, Castlemaine, Victoria. 

• Was possibly the John Portwine, born about 1809 convicted of forgery at the Old Bailey on 16 September 1830, and sentenced to transportation for life, who arrived in Tasmania aboard the Red Rover on 26 March 1831, obtained his ticket of leave in April 1839 and was granted a conditional pardon in January 1945.
• Had arrived in South Australia by 1846, when he was described as the secretary of the Boot and Shoemakers’ Society.
• Cordwainer at Thebarton, South Australia. Secretary of Cordwainers' Society in 1846 when he was active in the cordwainers' strikes.
• Moved to Victoria after 1857. Settled at Barker’s Creek, Castlemaine, where he was a butcher and, as John Thistelton Portwine, obtained a beer license in March 1870.
• Cause of death: syncope of the heart, sudden death – verdict at magisterial enquiry.

Sources
Michael Quinlan, ‘Early Trade Union Organisation in Australia: Three Australian Colonies 1829-1850', Labour and Industry, 1 (1) January 1987, pp 61-95; M. Quinlan & M. Gardiner Gardner (1990), ‘Researching Australian Industrial Relations in the Nineteenth Century’, in Patmore, G. (ed.), History and Industrial Relations, Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Teaching. Monograph No.1, pp.60-98; Biographical Index of South Australians.