People Australia

William Frederick (Fred) Thomas (1905-1977) fireman, builders’ labourer, trade union leader

Birth: 2 May 1905 in St Peters, Sydney, New South Wales, son of William Henry John Thomas, labourer, and Mary Agnes, née Smith or Guinerans. Marriages: (1) 4 April 1928 at St Paul’s Anglican Church, Sydney, to Catherine Maude Cannon (1905-1993). They had one son. The marriage ended in divorce. (2) 2 October 1937 at St James’s Catholic Church, Forest Lodge, Sydney to Edna Margaret (Teddi) Hurley (1915-1970). (3) 1970 at Katoomba, NSW, to Mavis Lillian Purves. Death: 29 October 1977 at Coffs Harbour, NSW. Religion: Anglican. 

• Entered the Royal Australian Navy on 1 February 1921, aged 15. Deserted from HMAS Tingira at Sydney at Sydney on 16 May 1921. Discharged at Sydney on 31 August 1921. Tried on 26 April 1922 at Newtown Police Court for stealing, was sentenced to one-month imprisonment with hard labour, suspended on entering a bond to be of good behaviour for twelve months.
• Lived at Claremont street, Campsie. Joined the fire Brigade in Sydney in 1926. Was badly burned about the face and body and hospitalised in October 1932. In April 1937, when he was a first-class fireman, he was dismissed — he claimed he was victimised because of his union activities with the Fire Brigades Association of NSW.
• He was possibly the Fred Thomas who became secretary of the NSW branch of the Builders’ Labourers’ Federation from 1940 and was federal secretary of the Australian BLF. Anti-communist. Probably corrupt.
• Burly figure, 17 stone and powerfully built.
• In early 1957 he was reported to be ill in hospital, took six months leave of absence but never returned to the union. Replaced by “Banjo” Patterson.
• In 1958 financial irregularities in the union’s finances during Thomas’s term of office came to light.
• Later worked as an industrial officer and later again as a taxi proprietor.
• Cause of death acute pulmonary oedema, congestive cardiac failure, ischaemic heart disease and maturity onset diabetes.

Sources
Paul True, Tales of the BLF: Rolling the Right The battle of the Builders Labourers rank and file in New South Wales, 1951-1964 (Parramatta, 1995); Humphrey McQueen, We built this country: builders’ labourers and their unions, 1787 to the future (Port Adelaide, 2011).