People Australia

James Roulston, by John Ellis, 1977

University of Melbourne Archives, UMA/​I/​375

James Francis (Jim) Roulston (1922-1982) boilermaker and trade union official

Birth: 16 August 1922 at Carlton, Melbourne, Victoria, son of native-born parents Rupert James Roulston (1899-1947), cleaner and council employee, and Lillas Myrtle, née Hicks (1896-1986). Marriage: 1940 at Prahran, Melbourne, to Beryl Edith Martin (1923-2018). They had one daughter and one son. Death: 7 March 1982 in hospital at Noble Park, Victoria; usual residence Cumberland Way, Endeavour Hills. Religion: buried with Uniting Church forms. 

• Served apprenticeship in boilermaking at Australian Iron and Steel in South Melbourne. Was employed as a boilermaker at Newport Workshops.
• Joined Boilermakers’ Society in 1941. Was shop steward and held various positions in Boilermakers’ Society before amalgamation. Joined the Communist Party of Australia early in his life as a boilermaker.
• Was first full-time official with Boilermakers’ Society in 1953. Left the CPA during the differences with Ted Hill in the early 1960s and later joined and became prominent in the Australian Labor Party.
• Victorian State president of the Amalgamated Metal Workers and Shipwrights' Union from 1972 until his death. Active in area of health and safety issues, unemployment, Aboriginal rights and world peace.
• Vice-president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. Described by Tribune as “a leader of the left in the Victorian ALP” and retained cordial relations with the CPA to the end of his active life.
• Died after a long illness from asbestosis contracted through welding work in the 1940s and 1950s. Cause of death: mesothelioma and metastases (1 year).

Sources
Metal Worker, April 1982; ARU Gazette, May 1982 p 5.