People Australia

Ted Riley, n.d.

National Library of Australia, 23481019

Edward (Old Ted) Riley (1859-1943) plasterer, trade union official and parliamentarian

Birth: 17 April 1859 at Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland, son of Irish-born parents Philip Reilley (1831-1881), labourer, and Catherine, née Conaghan (or Cunningham) (1836-1881), from Donegal. Marriage: 30 December 1881 at Glasgow to Annie (Annabel) Kirk (1858-1931), cotton powerloom weaver. They had four daughters and four sons. Death: 21 July 1943 at Banksia, Sydney, New South Wales. Religion: Presbyterian. 

• Arrived in Sydney with his wife as assisted immigrant aboard the Assaye on 3 September 1883. Member of the Operative Plasterers’ Union. Moved to Victoria in about 1890 and was elected president of the Melbourne branch of the Australian Association of Operative Plasterers. Represented Melbourne Operative Plasterers’ Union on Melbourne Trades and Labour Council and became executive member including president.
• Returned to Sydney in 1892. Represented Operative Plasterers’ Union on Sydney Labor Council. President of Sydney Labor Council from 1900 to 1905. Sydney Labor Council’s representative on State Arbitration Court. Member of Eight-Hour Committee in Melbourne and Sydney
• Played important part in founding Australian Labor Party. Campaigned for the granting of the old age pension. Joined Newtown Political Labor League and later was president of the Newtown-Camperdown Political Labor League for many years. Executive member PLL from about 1894 and president from about 1899 for three terms. Delegate to Political Labour League conferences over many years.
• Commissioned justice of the peace by 1900. Member of the board of control of the Worker (Wagga) for some years. In 1905 was elected employees’ representative on the NSW Arbitration Court. The position, worth £750 per annum ceased when the court was abolished in 1908.
• ALP candidate for seat of Newtown-Camperdown, in the NSW parliament, in July 1895 and July 1898 and the seat of South Sydney in the Federal general elections in December 1903. Claimed to have been the first to publicly advocate the inclusion of an Old Age Pension plank in the party’s platform from 1890..
• Was endorsed ALP candidate for Federal seat of South Sydney in 1906 but on appointment to the Arbitration Court made room for J. C. Watson. Riley was elected ALP member of the House of Representatives for South Sydney on 13 April 1910.
• Chairman, Public Works Committee 1914-1917. Member of the Select Committee on Effect of Operation of Navigation Act upon Trade 1923 and the Joint Select Committee on Commonwealth Electoral Law and Procedure 1926. Was defeated in the general election on 19 December 1931.
• Cause of death: chronic myocarditis and senility.
• His son Edward Charles Riley was MHR for Cook and his son-in-law Walter L. Duncan, was a Senator for NSW. A daughter Hope Emerald Riley (1895-1957) was mayoress of Newtown, (Sydney).

Sources
Who’s Who in Australia, 1922-1941; Sydney Morning Herald, 23 November 1926, 22 July 1943; L. F. Crisp & S. P. Bennett, Australian Labor Party: federal personnel 1901-1954, (Canberra, 1954); Official Souvenir for the Eight-Hour Demonstration, 1900, p 55; Australian Worker, 27 November 1919, p 7, 22 November 1922, p 11, 4 November 1925, p 7; Worker, 28 September 1905, 17 Dec. 1904 p 4; N. B. Nairn, Civilising Capitalism: the Labor movement in New South Wales 1870-1900, (Canberra, 1973), pp 141, 166, 199, 200, 203 and 212.