People Australia

Walter Walters

Westralian Worker (Perth), 5 November 1948, p 1

Walter Oscar Walters (1889-1948) miner, poultry farmer, trade union official and newspaper editor

Birth: 9 October 1889 at Panton Hill, near Queenstown [St Andrews], Melbourne, Victoria, posthumous son of Lawrence Albert Walters (1837-1889), a miner, born at Hudiksvall, Sweden, and Robina Sarah, née Joyce (1851-1929), born at Whitechapel, London. Marriage: 22 January 1930 at the Ross Memorial Church, Perth, Western Australia, to Emmie Elizabeth Moore (1899-1990), born at Fremantle, WA. Death: 27 October 1948 in Royal Perth Hospital. Religion: none [on his service record]; married and buried with Anglican rites. 

• Oscar’s father, who had arrived in Victoria about 1860, had died of congestion of the lungs and aneurism on 28 March 1889.
• In 1907 Oscar and his mother and siblings moved to Sandstone, Western Australia, where in 1912 he and his two brothers — Albert Harold (1888-1944) and Charles William (1876-1928) — were underground miners. In 1913-1914 he was secretary of the Sandstone Miners’ Union.
• On 23 June 1915 Oscar enlisted in Australian Imperial Force, serving in the No 3 Field Company Engineers at Gallipoli and on the Western Front where he was wounded in action in February and in again in September 1917. While at the front he contributed verse to the Westralian Worker. He was discharged at Albany, WA, on 3 June 1919.
• His service record recorded his height as 6 ft 2 inches (188 cm).
• A poultry farmer after the war, he joined the staff the Westralian Worker in 1928. Was Kalgoorlie manager in 1933 and succeeded John Curtin as editor in 1938.
• Secretary of Labor Broadcasting Radio Station 6KY.
• Trustee of the Australian Workers’ Union, WA. Member of the State Advisory Committee on Broadcasting and Board of Management of State Art Gallery.
• Wrote verse for the Sydney Bulletin and was a ‘versifier of note’, particularly regarding his war experience.
• ‘Oscar’s predominant principle was the Australian code of mateship’.
• Cause of death: coronary occlusion and cardio vascular degeneration [Coroner’s report].

Sources
H. J. Gibbney & Ann G. Smith (eds), A Biographical Register 1788-1939, vol 2 (Canberra, 1987); Westralian Worker, 5 November 1948; The Journalist, December 1948-January 1949.