People Australia

George Taylor, n.d.

George Cuthbert Taylor (1886-1957) shearer, miner, carpenter, gaoled Socialist, parliamentarian 

Birth: 14 February 1886 in Warrnambool, Victoria, son of William Walker Taylor, brewer and saddler, and Isabella, née Drever. Marriage: (1) 12 September 1907, Broken Hill, New South Wales, to Bessie Marion Cumming, photographic retoucher. They had one daughter. Had deserted wife and child by 1911. (2) de facto relationship, Brisbane, with Flora Jane, late Neville, née Cameron. They had one son and one daughter. Death: 2 January 1957 in Brisbane Hospital, Queensland; cremated at Mount Thompson, Brisbane. Cause of death was coronary artery disease and coronary occlusion. Religion: Rationalist, Anglican burial service.  

• Educated at Hamilton state school, Victoria, until 1898. Horse-boy for dam contractor at Warrings Basin. Dairy farm employee in the Western district.
• Shearer in Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland 1904. Miner in Ballarat and Broken Hill. Joined Australian Workers’ Union in 1902 and was an organiser in Adelaide from 1909 to 1911.
• Enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in 1914. Discharged and returned to Queensland in 1915.
• Worked with engineering firm at Kangaroo Point and was a soap-box orator in Brisbane. In 1919 participated in 'Merivale Street riots' and was charged under War Precautions Act for publicly displaying a red flag at an 'International Socialist' march. Sentenced to six months' imprisonment on 2 April, he was released on 19 July 1919.
• Employed as a clerk in the Queensland Government Tourist Bureau through friendship with the premier Thomas Joseph Ryan, who had represented him in his unsuccessful Supreme Court appeal. President of the Australian-Russian Association of Queensland, incorporating medical aid to Russia committee. President of the Returned Sailors and Soldiers' Labor League.
• Freemason.
• Elected as Australian Labor Party member of the Legislative Assembly for Enoggera 11 June 1932. 'Independent Enoggera Labor' candidate 29 October 1941, also stood on 'Aid to Russia' ticket. Expelled by ALP Queensland Central Executive. Defeated in March 1944. 
• In 1949 was a shipping company nightwatchman.

Sources
M. G. Sullivan, 'The Expulsion of George Cuthbert Taylor', Labor in Power: the Labor Party and Governments in Queensland 1915-57, D. J. Murphy et al, eds (St Lucia, 1980); D. B. Waterson & John Arnold, A Biographical Register of the Queensland Parliament 1930-1980 (Canberra, 1982).