People Australia

Edward Pherney (Ted) Sadler, also known as Saddler (1889-1959) mine worker, Socialist and community activist

Birth: 1889 at Atcham, near Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, son of Edward Sadler (c.1841-1899), a journeyman lithographer, later hotelier and haulier, born at St Helens, Lancashire, and his second wife, Martha Oliver, née Humphreys (1850-1915), a dressmaker, born at Manafon, Montgomeryshire, Wales. Unmarried. Death: 28 July 1959 at Carrington Convalescent Home, Camden, NSW, usual residence James road, Corrimal, NSW. 

• He was living in Shrewsbury, England, with his widowed mother, a dressmaker on her own account, and his siblings in 1901. It is not known when he came to Australia.
• Lived in Corrimal, Wollongong, NSW. Member of the South Bulli Miners’ Lodge from 1917 to 1948 (retired). Joined the Australian Socialist Party in 1917. Was a member of the Corrimal branch of the Australian Labor Party in the 1930s. Read avidly on Marxism.
• Prominent member of the Corrimal town band from at least 1917, and participated in an unemployed initiative to hold a May Day demonstration on Sunday, 1st May in the depression years which was against a Wollongong Municipal Council directive and led to a jail sentence.
• Participated in an action for free speech against the North Illawarra Municipal Council and led to a jail sentence.
• President of the Movement Against Fascism on the South Coast when the New Guard was active during the 1930s Depression.
• Active member of the Corrimal branch of the Retired Mineworkers Association and was vice-president of the district committee.
• Cause of death: coronary occlusion, arteriosclerosis and abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Sources
Common Cause, 8 August 1959, p 4.