People Australia

Cyril Vickers, 1942

National Archives of Australia, B883, QX28102

Cyril Thomas Vickers (1921-2004) coal miner, trade union official and Communist

Birth: 11 September 1921 at Rockhampton, Queensland, son of John Robert Grasby (Jack) Vickers (1879-1954), mine labourer, later bridge carpenter, born at Scotter, Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, England, and Queensland-born Lilly Jane, née Holliday (1881-1964). Marriages: (1) 22 September 1945 at Rockhampton to native-born Valda Margaretta Bennett (c.1926-1983). They had a daughter and a son. (2) 1954 at Ipswich to Sadie Dalziel Marshall, née Cowan, late Tresize (1929-2017), a nurse. They had one daughter and one son. Death: 5 March 2004 at Bloxsom Street, North Rockhampton, Queensland. Religion [service record]: Salvation Army. 

• Worked on Queensland pastoral stations before becoming a miner at Collinsville and Scottville, Queensland. Then moved to the West Moreton coalfield working at the Styx No. 3 mine.
• Vickers enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 8 January 1942 and served with the 2nd 16th infantry battalion in the Pacific.
• Discharged on 30 December 1944, he returned to the Styx coalmine in Qld. A Communist Party of Australia (CPA) activist, he was prominent in a 1946 campaign to provide housing for poverty-stricken Brisbane families in the largely-empty Ekibin army camp.
• He returned to mining at Collinsville State mine, becoming acting branch secretary.
• In 1947 he was campaign director for Fred Patterson; then for a period (including during the 1949 coal strike) was a full-time organiser for the CPA.
• Left the CPA in the 1950s. After being barred by West Moreton employers, he managed to obtain work at Parkhead mine c.1950.
• Chairman of Parkhead (Box Flat) branch of the Queensland Colliery Employees' Union (QCEU) from the early 1950s until 1961. Member of Miners' Federation Central Council.
• Elected secretary QCEU in 1961, working closely with Tom Millar and Charles M. (Digger) Murphy. Retired about 1971.
• Cause of death: cardiac arrest, myocardial infarct (2 hours) and atherosclerosis (20 years). 

Sources
Pete Thomas, The coalminers of Queensland: a narrative history of the Queensland Colliery Employees Union. Volume 1 Creating the traditions (Ipswich,1986).