People Australia

Mick Ryan, n.d.

ASIO file - photos, A9626, 436 (National Archives of Australia)

Michael Patrick (Mick) Ryan (1894-1978) labourer, tally clerk, trade union official and Communist

Birth: 9 March 1894 at Mudge Crossing, Wellington, New South Wales, son of native-born parents Michael Ryan (1853-1920), fettler, and Mary F. Shea (1858-1906). Marriages: (1) 21 August 1920 at North Sydney with Catholic rites to Mary Elizabeth Farrell (1892-1957). They had one daughter and one son. (2) from about 1950 relationship with Winifred Teresa Fenna (Win) (d.1978). Death: 8 August 1978 at William Lyne Hospital, Waratah, Newcastle; usual residence Fairfield Avenue, New Lambton, Newcastle. 

• Member of Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Member of Australian Labor Party becoming vice-president; he later resigned.
• Became a member of the Communist Party of Australia in 1928. Secretary of Workers’ Defence Corps organised to defend workers against attacks by the New Guard. Organised unemployed in 1930s Depression.
• Organiser, Storeman and Packers’ Union, Sydney, and was the first communist to be elected secretary of a union. Played leading role in timberworkers’ strike of 1930 or 1931;
• Dismissed by union in 1931 said to be due to his Communist Party activities interfering with his work. Delegate to Moscow. Member of International Class War Prisoners’ Aid. Delegate to Hands-off China Committee.
• Secretary of Northern Territory Workers’ Union, 1942.
• Moved to Newcastle about 1948. Continued active role in CPA. Secretary of Combined Council of Progress Associations.
• Active in the pensioner movement in retirement up to a few weeks before his death. Member of the Adamstown Pensioners’ Association and the Australia U.S.S.R. Society.
• Occupation on his death certificate given as cleaner. Cause of death: cerebro-vascular accident (45 days) and cerebral metastases (months).
• His wife Win was a long standing and widely respected stalwart of the labour movement. She was a member of the CPA for many years and later of the Socialist Party of Australia. She was particularly well known for her work in the broad women’s movement.

Sources
Australian Worker, 20 May 1931 p.8; Malcolm Henry Ellis, The red road: the story of the capture of the Lang party by Communists, instructed from Moscow (Sydney [1932], and The Garden path (Sydney, 1949); Tribune, 23 August 1978 p 10.