People Australia

Arthur Searle, n.d.

Arthur Edward Searle (1905-1992) fitter and turner and trade union official 

Birth: 25 June 1905 at Sydney, New South Wales, son of native-born parents Arthur William Bernard Searle (1867-1949), salesman, and Edith, née Blomgren (1876-1866). Marriage: 1 June 1935 at St Thomas’s Anglican Church, Rozelle, Sydney, to Henrietta Parkinson (1906-1980), a school teacher, born in Lancashire, England. They had one daughter. Death: 14 September 1992 in hospital at Boggabri, NSW; usual residence Crawford Road, Brighton-le-Sands, Sydney. 

• Fitter and turner with NSW Railways Department at Eveleigh locomotive shops, Enfield running shed and Cardiff railway workshops.
• Joined Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) about 1926. President of Sydney district of the AEU for several years.
• Was editor of Magnet, a paper produced by the central council of Railway Shop Committees for six years. Retired in 1944 from the shop committees. Secretary of Sydney district of the AEU from 1944 to 1962.
• Played a role in union campaign for £1 wage increase in late 1940s.
• In secretaryship elections in 1947, at least, he was targeted by Australian Labor Party Industrial Groups and their supporters.
• In August-September 1948 he visited the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics at the invitation of the Soviet Engineering Union.
• The Sydney Bulletin, in 1962, reported on the campaign against him by the ALP candidate Mervyn Malcolm, who claimed not to be a “Grouper”. It described Searle as “a Communist first and a trade union official second. He is active in “Peace” committees, has been to Moscow . . . and he has written in the Communist World Federation Trade Union Journal.”
• The Communist journal, Tribune, reported that Malcolm’s campaign was “a deceptive ruse”. It was, however, successful, and Searle was defeated.
• In 1963 he was a member of the award committee of the Mona Brand Fellowship of Australian Writers.
• Cause of death: carcinoma of prostate with pulmonary and multiple bony metatsases.

Sources
John Playford, Doctrinal and strategic problems of the Communist Party of Australia, 1945-1962, PhD thesis, ANU, 1962, p.431; Tribune, 10 June 1947, p3; Magnet, November 1944, p 2.