People Australia

Betty Reilly, c.1955

Tribune (Sydney), 13 April 1955, p 6

Betty Mary (Elizabeth) Reilly (1910-2002) doffer, industrial worker, feminist and Communist

Birth: 15 November 1910 at Sandringham, Melbourne, Victoria, daughter of native-born parents Daniel Matthew McCann (1854-1927), a gentleman of independent means, previously post office employee, and Johanna Gertrude, née Maher (1882-1968). Marriage: 1936 to Frederick John Reilly. The marriage ended in divorce in 1948. Death: 29 November 2002 in Sydney. 

• Her grandfather Matthew McCann (1818-1905) was a Catholic labourer from County Armagh, Ireland, who arrived in Melbourne with his wife as bounty immigrants aboard the Wallace on 16 February 1844. At his death was described as a gentleman of independent means.
• Attended 1936 rally in support of the Spanish Republic addressed by Jack Blake and other Communist Party of Australia (CPA) speakers.
• Joined St Kilda Branch of CPA in 1937. Hosted weekly tutorials on Marxist theory given by Dr Gerry O’Day.
• First factory meeting which she chaired was addressed by International Brigadier, Ron Hurd. Campaigned for O’Day in Corio by-election in late 1939; also participated in Melbourne protests against visits by Italian warship, Raymondo Montcucoli, and Nazi emissary, Count Von Luckner.
• Was in Sydney at time of CPA banning in 1940, witnessing police raids on members’ homes, including her own.
• Volunteered to assist Newtown strike committee during 1941 textile strike; then worked at Bonds mill in Camperdown but subsequently found work as a doffer at Australian Woollen Mills, when she began organising workers into Textile Workers’ Union. Appointed shop steward, organised petition demanding a canteen, work stools, change rooms and other facilities.
• With Nazi invasion of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, followed CPA call for intensified work effort. Active in 1943 Sydney textile strike but (reluctantly) supported CPA’s call for end to strike action. Secretary of CPA Women’s Committee, 1945.
• Was selected as CPA candidate for the Senate in February 1949 but did not nominate.
• Active in Union of Australian Women, and sometime member of its NSW management committee. Employed by Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF), in Berlin, Germany, from 1952 to 1955. In 1954 represented WIDF and UAW at National Congress of Indian Women,
• In the 1963 electoral roll was described as a clerk, living at Paddington, Sydney.
• Was a frequent contributor to the left-wing press and editor of Forward, the organ of the Glebe Unemployed Council, when the CPA was banned, in 1941-1943.

Sources
Sixty Years of Struggle, vol. 2; John Playford Doctrinal and strategic problems of the Communist Party of Australia, 1945-1962, PhD thesis, ANU, 1962; Joyce Stevens, Taking the revolution home: work among women in the Communist Party of Australia (Fitzroy, Vic, c.1987).