People Australia

Edgar Walsham, n.d.

Edgar Noel Walsham (1906-1969) labourer, railway worker, trade union official and Communist 

Birth: 1 December 1906 at Grafton, New South Wales, son of native-born parents Edgar Walsham (1882-1919), blacksmith, and Florence Victoria, née Faint (1882-1949). Marriages: (1) 26 January 1929 at St Matthew’s Anglican Church, Manly, to Ivy Emelia Olsen, later Bye (1911-1968). They had one daughter. The marriage ended in divorce about 1941. (2) 1943 at Milson’s Point, North Sydney, NSW, to Winifred (Win or Winnifred) Keesing (1908-1990), a typist and fellow Communist, born at Hackney, London, England. They had one son. Death: 12 September 1969 in his usual residence at Lindsay Street, Campsie, Sydney. Religion: Communist burial service. 

• His father died of pneumonic influenza in the pandemic of 1919 in which his mother and three of her children suffered from the disease.
• Worked as a metalworker on the NSW Railways.
• Communist Party of Australia activist from 1930s. Prominent figure, with Frank Bollins and others, in railway shop committee movement from the late 1930s.
• President, NSW branch of the Australian Railways Union 1943-1945. Secretary, Central Council of Railway Shop Committees, NSW.
• With his wife, he opposed the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
• Occupation on his death certificate “messenger”. Cause of death: cerebral haemorrhage (minutes) and acute atherosclerosis (years).

Sources
John Playford, Doctrinal and strategic problems of the Communist Party of Australia, 1945-1962, PhD thesis, ANU, 1962.