People Australia

Daniel Rees junior (1866-1934) coal miner, gaoled trade union leader, Labor politician 

Birth: 10 March 1866 Waratah, New South Wales, son of Daniel Rees, Welsh-born miner and chair of Hunter District Miners' Protective Association, and Elizabeth, née Francis. Marriage: 6 September 1888, Wallsend, Newcastle, to Elizabeth McPherson Syme. They had two sons and one daughter. Death: 19 June 1934, Leichhardt, Sydney, New South Wales. Burial at Wallsend, Newcastle, New South Wales. Religion: Presbyterian. 

• Spent early years in Lithgow; moved to Wallsend aged nine. Educated at Plattsburg school. Australian Rules intercolonial player in youth.
• At 12 employed by Co-operative Colliery Wallsend, later at Elermore Vale mine.
• Member of delegate board of Coal Miners' Mutual Protective Association of the Hunter River District 1888. Subsequently active in Colliery Employees' Federation (brother Ben also active in union); chair. Co-operative Colliery lodge at 23 years; member CEF Northern District Delegate Board.
• Acting chair after arrest of Peter Bowling and others during 1909-10 coal strike. Convicted on 30 December 1909 with thirteen others of having instigated a strike and gaoled for 2 months after refusing to pay £100 fine imposed by Judge Charles Heydon.
• member coal tribunal during World War I. Alderman Wallsend council. General president Australasian Coal & Shale Employees' Federation 1922-34, retiring through ill health.
• Member NSW ALP Central Executive 1923-27; director Labor Daily 1924-25; vice-president ACTU 1927-34. Dedicated unionist but proved incapable of rising above acute difficulties associated with 1929 Northern lock-out and ensuing depression; unsuccessfully opposed for presidency by Charles Nelson.
• Labor Member of the Legislative Council of NSW Nov.1931-June 1934.

Sources
A.L.P. Year Book / Australia Labor Party. New South Wales Branch 1933 & 1934/35; Heather Radi, Peter Spearritt and Elizabeth Hinton, Biographical Register of the NSW Parliament 1901-1970 (Canberra, 1979); Robin Gollan, The coalminers of New South Wales: a history of the Union (Melbourne, 1963); Edgar Ross, A history of the Miners' Federation of Australia ([Sydney] 1970); Labor Daily, 13 Jan. 1927; Newcastle Morning Herald, 30 December 1909, p. 5, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/138464561 accessed 25 July 2021.