People Australia

Fred Thomas, n.d.

Frederick William (Fred) Thomas (1880-1962) teacher, trade union official and orchardist

Birth: 1880 at Barry’s Reef, Victoria, son of Richard Thomas (1853-1901), a storekeeper, born at St Just, Cornwall, England, and Euphemia, née Rae (1855-1945), born at Geelong, Victoria. Marriages: (1) 1906 at Armadale, Victoria, to Eleanor Henrietta Butler (1879-1929). They had one daughter and one son. (2) 1934 at Glenhuntly to native-born Marion Isobel Alice (Isobel) Steel (1893-1972), a teacher. They had no children. Death: 13 July 1962 in Austin Hospital at Heidelberg, Victoria; usual residence Ormond Road, Ivanhoe. 

• Monitor and junior teacher at Northcote. Teacher at Training College for two years. Head teacher of Glenvale school for three years. Teacher at secondary continuation school for three years. Was an orchardist at Bunyip in the 1920s.
• Resigned from department of education and founded and conducted the Austral Training College for twelve years. Teacher at Warragul High School for four years. Teacher at Wangaratta Technical College in 1933.
• General secretary of the Victorian Teachers’ Union from April 1934 until he retired in 1946. Assisted in preparing and presenting first salary claim for Tribunal decision. Wrote a regular column in union journal titled ‘My Library and Yours’. He was secretary of the Education Reform Association in 1943.
• Press reports indicated he had either BA or an MA. Reputedly was lecturer at Melbourne University.
• Organised Gippsland Apple Growers’ Association and Wangaratta local tobacco growers.
• Closely associated with cultural movement in literary and artistic circles. Developed a talent as a water colourist which he displayed in his home in Ivanhoe.
• Cause of death: metastatic carcinoma of liver (3 months), carcinoma of prostate (3 years).

Sources
[Unknown source] August 1962; Teachers’ Journal, 20 April 1934, p 88, 20 February 1951, pp 3 & 13, 20 February 1953, p 13.