People Australia

Wallwork, Daniel (Dan) (1824-1909) locksmith, railway worker, temperance activist, freethinker and Chartist.

Birth: 5 December 1824 at Wickenhall, Littleborough, Lancashire, England, eldest child of Howarth Wallwork (1794-1871), fuller and weaver, and Ann, née Whitworth (1800-c.1878). Marriages: (1) 7 December 1851 at St Thomas’s church, Dudley, Worcester, to Fanny Truman or Trueman (1822-?). (2) a widower, on 22 February 1871 at the Registrar’s office, Newcastle, New South Wales, to Emily Lousia, née Taylor, late Goodsir (1833-1883), born at Maidenhead, Berkshire, and twice widowed, with four children. They had one son. (3) 1895 at Newcastle, NSW, to English-born Maria Alice Heywood (1847-1923). Death: 12 October 1909, at Newcastle, New South Wales. Religion: none, was a Secularist. 

• Part of large family. Received his early education at a village school and at the age of 12 went to work in a factory. Attended Sunday School, became a teacher and church member, also member of a temperance society. In the 1841 census his occupation was given as a cotton worker at Heap, Bury, [Manchester], in Lancashire.
• During the 1840s he became involved in the factory reform movement as an agent for Ten Hours’ Advocate. Was also militant Chartist in the 1840s and 1850s.
• After searching for employment in principal cities of Yorkshire he settled at Dudley, Worcestershire, and met active temperance advocate Thomas Trueman, a locksmith and sheet iron worker, who taught Wallwork those trades. During fifteen years in Dudley he became secretary of the temperance society there.
• By 1853 he had discarded the religious convictions of his youth and become “a belligerent and outspoken atheist”. In 1856 he was correspondent for G. J. Holyoake’s journal The Reasoner, while organising a local secularist group. Became influential and leading secularist in UK;
• Migrated to Australia arriving in Sydney aboard the SS Auckland on 12 July 1863. Settled in Newcastle, New South Wales. Worked on the Government Railways.
• Prominent rank and file activist in the 1870s and 1880s. Influential in promoting secularism and claimed to be the originator of the eight-hour day in New South Wales. Retired from the Railways department in April 1892. The following year he visited the United Kingdom and returned via the United States of America. And in 1900 he again visited Europe.
• From 1897 he resided at Carrington, Newcastle. In February 1899 he was unsuccessful candidate for the position of alderman on Carrington Municipal Council. Was librarian of the local School of Arts, which he had helped to establish. Was a playing member of the local cricket club up to 1908.
• A frequent contributor to the press as a temperance advocate. For some 40 years he was a member of the local lodge of the Sons of Temperance.

Sources
Secular’s Who’s Who; information from G. Patmore.