People Australia

Thomas Walter Vine (1797?-1882) carpenter, miner, trade union official, and builder 

Birth: 21 June 1796 or 1797 at Finsbury, Middlesex (London), England, son of Walter Vine (1761-1829), builder, and Mary Ann, née Boniface (1754-1833). Marriage: 22 April 1819 at St Matthew’s Church, Bethnal Green, London, to Jane Thompson (1799-1887). They had seven sons and seven daughters [including one set of twins and one set of triplets]. Death: 6 November 1882 in his daughter’s residence at Echuca, Victoria. Religion: Anglican. 

• Carpenter and member of the Royal Navy, taking part in the suppression of the slave trade in China seas. Active in the reform movement in England in 1832. Was a Chartist and a supporter of electoral reform in Ireland.
• He arrived in Victoria with his wife and younger children aboard the Calphurnia on 13 August 1853, and his son Charles arrived with his family in 1854. As gold miners, Walter and Charles found themselves amidst “the pandoric excitement and the Bacchanalian debaucheries of a digger’s life”.
• Returning to Melbourne (Fitzroy), both were prominent in Melbourne labour circles throughout the 1850s to 1860s. In 1856 Thomas organised the first meeting of carpenters in Melbourne at Belvidere Hotel, passing motions to support stonemasons in calling for the establishment of the 8-hour working day.
• Established in April 1856, with Charles, the Melbourne Progressive Society of Carpenters and Joiners.
• Inaugural president of 8-hour movement in Victoria in 1856 and resolved colours of movement’s flag: red, white and blue. Reputedly three of his daughters made the first banner.
• In 1872 he was president of the Carpenters and Joiners Society.
• Occupation on death certificate, builder. Cause of death: old age and debility (5 weeks).

Sources
Merrifield papers, State Library of Victoria; W. E. Murphy, History of the eight hours’ movement, 1896; Labor Call, 5 August 1915; The Carpenter and Joiner, November 1963.