People Australia

Bertie William Sheiles (1884-1950) engine-driver and trade union official 

Birth: 25 August 1884 at Pyrmont, Sydney, son of native-born parents William John Sheiles (1859-1917), carpenter, and Alice Maud, née Brown (1861-1915). Marriage: 1911 at Glebe, Sydney, to native-born Ruby May D Mitchell (1886-1973). They had had one daughter and four sons. Death: 12 April 1950 in his residence at Evaline Street, Campsie, Sydney. Religion: Catholic. 

• Educated by the Marist Brothers at St Francis’s School, Haymarket, Sydney.
• Had moved with his parents and siblings to Western Australia by 1898. Completed mining course at School of Mines in Kalgoorlie. Assisted in organising the Amalgamated Miners’ Association.
• A prominent athlete and champion club swinger, he was a member of the YMCA Australia Rules premier football team, a leading member of the Independent Harriers, Kalgoorlie, and 100 yards amateur sprint champion of WA in 1906.
• Sheiles returned to NSW about 1906. Studied sanitation and ventilation of mines at Sydney Technical College for three years. Again prominent in amateur athletics, he was a founder and honorary secretary of the YMCA Harriers club in 1909.
• Lived at Glebe, Sydney; occupation described as “traveller”, in 1913 NSW electoral roll.
• Employed by Navy Department in Sydney from about 1915 to 1919 with services requisitioned for war work. Reputedly was a member of the Engineers and Federated Engine Drivers’ Association.
• President of the Commonwealth Temporary Clerks’ Association. Advocate in Federal Arbitration Court representing Commonwealth clerks. Executive officer of Australian Clerical Association.
• Union representative at Cockatoo naval dockyards, Sydney, and on Federal Shipbuilding Tribunal. In 1921 he was dismissed from his position as recorder at Cockatoo dockyards, reputedly as reprisal for his union activities.
• Active in the Australian Labor Party, he was secretary of the Hurstville Labor League, the Hurstville State electorate council and Illawarra federal council. Executive officer of ALP in 1919. Opposed conscription. Contested seat in Kogarah Council for Labor in 1914 and Drummoyne at State elections in 1917 and was Labor candidate for Federal seat of Illawarra in December 1919 and contested preselection for new Federal seat of Barton in September 1922.
• Took over as secretary of the NSW branch of the Federated Clerks’ Union of Australia in 1928. Was dismissed and charged in December 1929 with embezzlement of union funds, but was acquitted.
• Unsuccessful candidate for municipal council of Hurstville in December 1934.
• In 1935 was appointed secretary of the United Slaters, Tilers and Shinglers Association of NSW. To overcome the deplorable conditions in the tileyards, he organized the piecework contractors and registered them as the Master Slaters and Tiler’s Association, of which he also became secretary.
• Cause of death: coronary occlusion, hypertension, diabetes and gastric ulcer.
• Brother of Ernest Clarence Sheiles (1886-1960), member of the Electrical Trades and the Tramway unions, an official in the Federated Ironworkers’ Union and Labor candidate for the State seats Ryde in March 1920 and of St George in May 1925.
• Father of Bertie William Sheiles (1911-1976), an electrical contractor, who was a champion sprinter and athlete and represented Australia as javelin thrower at the Empire Games in Sydney in 1938.

Sources
Australian Worker, 20 November 1919 p 15; Labor News, 29 November 1919.