People Australia

George Ryce (1887-1929) fitter and turner and trade union official

Birth: 1887 at Glasgow, Scotland, son of John Ryce or Rice (1847-?), bootmaker, and Margaret, née Williamson (1852-1926). Marriage: 1913 at Perth, Western Australia, to Violet Lillian Stubbings (1887-1965), born at Fulham, London, England. They had one daughter and three sons. Death: 1 February 1929 at Kareenya Hospital, Perth, WA. Religion: Presbyterian funeral. 

• Was an apprenticed sawyer living at Hutchesontown, Glasgow, Scotland, in 1911.
• Reputedly participated in industrial struggles in the United States and Canada.
• Arrived at Fremantle, Western Australia, aboard the Orontes on 26 December 1911. Worked as fitter and turner at Midland Junction Railway Workshops and occasionally for the West Guildford Road Board.
• Elected to West Guildford Road Board, 1916-1919. Member of Amalgamated Society of Engineers, Perth no. 2 Branch, from 1912 until his death; trustee 1922-1925.
• He was also secretary of the Hotel, Club, Caterers, Tearooms & Restaurant Employees’ Union from 1923 until his death. Assisted Cecilia Shelley in organising at least two prolonged strikes on behalf of the union. Instrumental in organising carnival at White City, organised to establish a club for tearoom girls, 1924.
• President of the Fire Brigade Employees’ Union in 1919-1922 and assisted in organising the union. Secretary of the Fire Brigades Employees’ Union, 1922-1925. Joined Seamen’s Union, reputedly in 1923. Was Fremantle branch member and executive member WA branch 1924.
• Attended a meeting in Trades Hall, Perth, to found the WA Branch of Communist Party of Australia, with Katherine Susannah Prichard, Joe Shelly and George Warner Whitbread, in 1920.
• Formed Labor Study Circle at Trades Hall with Prichard, Whitbread and others to discuss Marxist ideas and theory and as part of this group he wrote ‘Marx and Modern Conditions’. Held official position with the Metropolitan Council of the Australian Labor Party.
• During the 1925 British Seamen’s strike, he vigorously deplored the attitude of the State Labor government towards the strikers, and with the aid of Tom Walsh was appointed an official of the Seaman’s Union.
• Walsh and Ryce both attacked John Curtin of the Westralian Worker for his failure to support the strikers and for failing to print a highly libelous letter composed by Ryce and Walsh. They attempted to have Curtin declared ‘black’.
• This error in judgement cost the seamen much support among the labour movement in WA and hastened a move towards the expulsion of Ryce from the ALP at the 1925 Labour congress.
• Allowed a prolonged speech in his defence, he detailed his struggles on behalf of box makers, and the Hotel and Restaurant workers. He claimed that he had always been a legitimate representative of the Seaman’s Union, and that his vigorous struggles against employers were the legitimate duty of a union secretary. Despite vigorous support from C. Shelley and T. Fox the motion to expel Ryce was carried by 77 votes to 30.
• The controversy was revived in 1928 by a pamphlet, ‘The Crooks Exposed’, published by Jacob Johnson, General Secretary of the Seamen’s Union, which purported to show that Ryce was not a member of the union as he had claimed, but that Walsh had forged documents to make it appear that he had joined in 1923.
• A dog-lover, he pursued his hobby for many years and was a judge of dog show and at the Boulder City Show in early 1920s.
• Cause of death: myocarditis and heart failure.
• He was remembered as a ‘shrewd tactician’ and ‘militant to the core’ and having died as a young man because of his strenuous life.

Sources
Westralian Worker, 16 May 1924 p 11, 26 December 1924, p 11, 6 July 1928, pp.1-2; Justina Williams, The First Furrough, pp 85-88, 91, & 96; J. Carter, Bassendean: A social History 1829-1979, (1986), pp 158-160, 305, 307 159; information from death certificates for George and Violet Lillian Ryce and children’s birth certificate; files of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, the Hotel, Club, Caterers, Tearoom and Restaurant Employees Union and the Fire Brigade Employees Union 1920-1955; P. Gifford (ed), Red Baiting and Purging Radicals: Western Australia and the British Seaman’s Strike of 1925, in Papers in Labour History, No. 9, 1992, pp 66-67; ALP WA Branch 6th General Council, 12th Congress, 1925, pp 53-72.