People Australia

Tom Scott, 1948

Labor Call (Melbourne), 11 June 1948, p 2

Thomas Davidson Morton (Tom) Scott (1901-1952) fireman/stoker and trade union official 

Birth: 1901 at Byker, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland, England, son of George Scott (1852-1931), “scavinger” and municipal overseer, and Susanna Lisle (Anna), née Morton (1857-c.1956?). Marriage: 1921 at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, to Theresa Henderson Milburn (1902-1987).  They had three daughters. Death: 9 July 1952 in his usual residence at Spring Road, Caulfield, Victoria. 

• Also known as Thomas Davison Morton Scott and often as T. D. M. Scott.
• Arrived in Victoria about 1924. Worked as a fireman in Yallourn.
• Joined Yallourn sub-branch of the Federated Engine Drivers and Firemen’s Association (FEDFA) in 1927, having previously been a member in Great Britain. Member of Victorian management committee, 1931. Branch assistant secretary in 1936.
• Secretary of the FEDFA Victoria-Tasmanian Branch 1944. Acting federal general secretary in 1946, 1949 and 1950. Federal councillor from 1948.
• Australian Council of Trade Unions delegate from 1944. FEDFA representative on Melbourne Trades Hall Council. FEDFA representative at Australian Labor Party conferences. Member of ALP for many years.
• Representative from Australian Metal Trades Unions on Metal Trades Committee of International Labor Office in 1947.
• A member of the Preston branch, he was an unsuccessful candidate in ALP preselection for the then new seat of Wills in the Federal parliament in July 1949.
• Described in April 1949 by Cecil Sharpley as not a Communist, but “a militant industrialist with strong democratic principles”. Some leading Communists such as Jackie Brown, Bert Flanagan and Don Thomson were said to “loath him”.
• Cause of death: secondary cancer of liver, uraemia (24 days) and cancer of stomach (1 year).

Sources
ALP, Victoria branch, central executive report 1952/53. Safety Valve, September 1952 p 13.