People Australia

Sydney Pratt, n.d.

Sydney Ernest (Syd) Pratt (1887-1973) journalist and trade union official

Birth: 28 March 1887 at Paddington, Sydney, New South Wales, son of William Rider Pratt (1853-1927), a journalist, born at Elgin, Scotland, and Alice Virginia, née Phillips (1859-1941), born at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. Marriage: 2 September 1912 at the Congregational Church, East Melbourne, Victoria, to Adelaide Susan Mary Martin (1888-1989), a milliner born at Richmond, Melbourne. They had two sons. Death: 21 May 1973 at Donvale, Melbourne, Victoria; usual residence Warrandyte Road, Ringwood North. 

• Syd attended Fort Street Model School, Sydney, and became a junior reporter on the Sydney Morning Herald. After briefly working in Melbourne, he moved to Adelaide, South Australia.
• He was a senior journalist on the Daily Herald, the official organ of United Labor party reporting on labour, political and industrial issues. Attended the inaugural meeting which formed the South Australian branch of the Australian Journalists’ Association (AJA) in 1911. He was honorary secretary of the SA branch in 1912-1919 and became general secretary of the AJA in 1919. Pratt remained in that position until he retired in 1954.
• Events that stood out in his career included his work with Sydney Deamer, then general president — in a 1924 arbitration case they won higher rates of pay for many members by changing the classification system and in the 1930s when the AJA resisted the Commonwealth Arbitration Court acceptance of a general ten percent wage cut.
• Also in 1953-1955 he presented AJA evidence and argument in the full-scale hearing in the Metropolitan Daily Newspaper Case for a new award with good results. He was a delegate on the Federal Council in 1912-1954; awarded Gold Honour Badge of AJA, 1915, and was Honorary Life Member of AJA from 1944.
• Appointed MBE for his services to journalism in 1951.
• Cause of death: bronchopneumonia (1 week) and carcinoma prostate (years). 

Sources
Journalist, 24 April 1931, p 50, November 1954, November 1971, p 11, June 1973, pp 1, 3; Australian Journalist, 23 February 1917, pp 50-51; Age (Melbourne), 6 June 1955, 22 May 1973.