People Australia

Fred Walsh, n.d.

John Frederick (Fred) Walsh (1893-1968) brewery worker, trade union official and parliamentarian

Birth: 21 April 1893 at Adelaide, South Australia, son of native-born parents John Frederick Walsh [senior] (1868-1955), labourer, and Catherine Anne, née Burns (1871-1959). Marriages: (1) 1912 at Broken Hill, New South Wales, to Kathleen Miranda Booth (1892-1974), born at Richmond, Victoria. They had one daughter and two sons. The marriage ended in divorce in April 1936. (2) c.1939 to a divorcée Minnie Marion, née Martin, late Brown (1901-1989). Death: 29 April 1968 at Repatriation Hospital, Daw Park, SA. Religion: Anglican [on service record] and Methodist. 

• Educated at Sturt Street State School, Adelaide. Was in Broken Hill, NSW in 1912-1913. Was working as a brewery employee in Adelaide in 1915.
• Enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force at Keswick, SA, on 26 July 1915. Served in the 1st Light Horse Regiment and the 14th Field Artillery Brigade as a gunner in France, and was wounded in action (mustard gassed) in October 1917. He rejoined his unit in France in April 1918. Returning to Australia on 27 May 1919 he was discharged in Adelaide on 8 September 1919.
• Walsh resumed work in a brewery and became assistant secretary and organiser for the Liquor Trades Union. President of the Federal Liquor Trades Union for 25 years, he was delegate to the United Trades and Labor Council in 1923 and prominent in the industrial and political labour movement for the next 40 years.
• In August 1929 he attended the Pan-Pacific Trade Union conference held at Vladivostock, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and afterwards toured Russia and visited the United Kingdom. He returned to Adelaide aboard the Bendigo on 6 December 1929.
• President of the SA Trades and Labour Council in 1924-1925, 1943-1944, 1949-1959, he was a foundation member of the executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions from 1927 to 1955.
• He was president of the SA branch of the Australian Labor Party in 1934-1935, 1943-1944, 1947-1949. Federal president ALP in 1945-1946. Member of Commonwealth Advisory Committee (Manpower) 1942-1945. Director of 5KA Broadcasting Co; director of Mutual Hospital Association Ltd.
• ALP member of the House of Assembly for Thebarton from 12 December 1942 to 2 March 1956 and for West Torrens from 3 March 1956 to 5 March 1965.
• Appointed CBE in January 1964 for public service in South Australia.
• Cause of death: bronco pneumonia (3 days) and carcinoma of stomach (6 months).

Sources
Howard Coxon, John Playford & Robert Reid, Biographical Register of the South Australian Parliament 1857-1957 (Adelaide, 1985; Jim Moss, Sound of trumpets: history of the labour movement in South Australia (Cowandilla, 1985)