People Australia

George Walter Rymer (1889-1976) wagon builder, trade union official and businessman 

Birth: 28 January 1889 at Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England, son of Arthur Rymer (b.1865), railway wagon repairer, and Emma, née Sadler (b.1865). Marriage: about 1913 at Worcester, Worcestershire, to Jessie Bird (1885-1976), a dressmaker, born at Handsworth, Staffordshire, England. They had one daughter and one son. Death: 1 July 1976 at Eddington, Sunnybank, Brisbane, Queensland. Religion: Anglican. 

• Railway wagon builder in Birmingham. Member of the Vehicle Builders’ Union in England.
• Arrived in Townsville, Queensland, in 1914. Worked in railway workshops.
• Member of Australian Railways Union (ARU). Elected workshop delegate on Northern District Committee. In this capacity he represented the ARU at Royal Commission on ‘Dirt Money’ and in an enquiry before Justice McCawley into the first railway award.
• Appointed Northern District secretary of the ARU in 1917. Transferred by ARU to Brisbane as assistant general State secretary in 1920.
• Expelled from Australian Labor Party in Queensland in late 1920s. Forceful debater. Delegate of Brisbane Trades and Labor Council to Melbourne in 1928.
• Union created position of full-time paid president in 1921 which included editorship of The Railway Advocate. George held the position until he was deposed in 1930. The presidency reverted to a voluntary position and the editorship was incorporated into the State secretary’s duties.
• Visited Great Britain and Europe for six months in 1923, meeting Russian leaders at the International Exhibition in Moscow in August. While in England was “bitten by the radio bug” and thereafter kept abreast with modern movements in radio.
• After his union career ended his occupation in Queensland electoral rolls was shown as “journalist” and, according to press reports, he “engaged in commercial pursuits” in Queensland, including managing a furniture business and radio development with the Phillips company.
• Occupation later in life was “radio and television businessman”. Cause of death: myocardial infarction (minutes) and coronary artery disease (10 years).

Sources
Francis Nolan, You Pass this Way Only Once (Brisbane, 1974), edited by Denis Murphy, pp 36-37; Margaret Bridson Cribb, ‘The A.R.U. in Queensland: some oral history, in Labour History, No. 22 May 1972, pp 13-22.