People Australia

William Robinson, n.d.

State Library of South Australia, b21094019

William Alfred Robinson (1852-1927) carriage trimmer, trade union official and parliamentarian

Birth: 3 February 1852 at Hoxton, Shoreditch, London, son of Henry Robinson (1829-1916), tailor, and Elizabeth, née Aldridge (1831-1855). Marriage: 25 December 1875 at Creswick, Victoria, to Margaret Patterson (1856-1890). They had two daughters and one son. Death: 23 July 1927 at Adelaide Hospital, Adelaide, South Australia. 

• Educated at a private school. Arrived in Victoria with his parents and siblings aboard the Whirlwind on 22 August 1863.
• After his family settled in Melbourne, he became apprenticed to the coach building firm of Messrs. Stevenson & Elliot in Melbourne at the age of 16 to learn coach trimming. Carriage trimmer with Talbot and Creswick, Victoria.
• Moved to South Australia in 1879 and was employed as a carriage trimmer.
• Much interested in literary societies and in trades unions and was one of the first Labor representatives on the Commission of Peace. Commissioner of Jubilee Exhibition 1887. Secretary of the Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen’s Association for 22 years.
• Secretary of the Trades and Labour Council of SA from 1886 to 1890 and president for five years. Delegate to Trade Union Congress in Tasmania in 1886 and 1889. Was commissioned justice of the peace by May 1892.
• Elected member of the Legislative Council for Central District in a by-election on 15 April 1893. Was defeated on 18 May 1900. Contested Central in 1900, 1901 (by-election) and in 1902 (Labor).
• Cause of death: epithelioma of Epiglottis (9 months) and secondary deposits of glands of neck.

Sources
Howard Coxon, John Playford & Robert Reid, Biographical Register of the South Australian Parliament 1857-1957 (Adelaide, 1985); Jim Moss, Sound of trumpets: history of the labour movement in South Australia (Cowandilla,1985) p 111; T. H. Smeaton, 1914 The People in Politics: a short history of the Labor movement in South Australia (Adelaide, 1914), p 5; J. Norton (ed), The History of Capital and Labour in All Lands and Ages (Sydney, 1888) pp 236-237.