People Australia

George Stanley Stickland, (also known as Strickland) (1889-1967) bootmaker, trade union official and Communist 

Birth: 1889 at Ballarat, Victoria, son of Henry John Stickland (1836-1890), a miner born at Portisham, Dorset, England, and Harriet, née Eldridge (1847-1905), born at Adelaide, South Australia. Marriage: 16 October 1920 at North Perth, Western Australia, to Lilian Irene Parkinson (1896-1983), born at Preston, Lancashire, England. They had one daughter and one son. Death: 12 August 1967 at Royal Perth Hospital, WA; usual residence Austin Street, Subiaco, Perth.

• Reputedly, his grandfather fought at the Eureka Stockade.
• Arrived in Western Australia about 1917 and, a qualified clicker, worked in the boot trade. He was a longtime resident of Subiaco.
• “Veteran peace agitator of WWI, union leader and communist”. The 1890s was the time of Labor's political success in colonial parliaments and Strickland expressed that: “we all thought that our emancipation was just around the corner, and that our Australia would have the proud honour of being the first socialist country in the world”.
• Secretary of Bootmakers’ Union 1919-1921 and again in 1943-1948 (then a full-time position. Active in the fight to achieve 44 hours work limit in the boot trade during his first term as secretary. Banned from appearing in arbitration court by A. E. Dunphy, who was very anti-communist. (About the same time there was a ban on Tom Wignall and Fred Wayman).
• Recalled that anti-conscription meetings in Perth were especially bitter and that Reverend Tom Allan earned the nickname of ‘Bomb’ Allan due to his bloodthirsty utterances in leading the charge of overturning the platforms of the anti-conscriptionists.
• Expelled from Australian Labor Party in 1920s due to Communist allegiances. He was convicted and fined for breaching the National Security Regulations during World War II. Communist candidate for municipal council of Subiaco in 1943.
• After leaving office as union secretary in 1949 he was blacklisted by the boot trade bosses and refused support by the new administration of the Bootmakers Union.
• Cause of death: carcinoma of left lung (6 months) and melanoma left chest (2 years). 

Sources
Justina Williams, The First Furrow (Perth, 1976), pp 37, 54, 93 & 172. Notes from interview with Vic and Justina Williams.