People Australia

James Wardley, n.d.

James Yard (Jim) Wardley, also known as James Yarde or Yard (1815-1926) baker and trade union official

Birth: 20 October 1815 at Exeter, Devonshire, England, one of twin sons of James Yarde. Marriages: (1) as James Yarde, on 8 September 1856 at All Saints Church, Hindmarsh, Adelaide, South Australia, to Charlotte Endacott (1832-1888), a servant, born at Dunsford in Devon. (2) details unknown, possibly about 1867, to Margaret McLennan (1838-1910), born at Dores, Inverness, Scotland. Death: 26 May 1926 at his usual residence, Albert Place, South Melbourne, Victoria. Religion: buried with Methodist forms. 

• Served 7-year apprenticeship in breadmaking to the firm of Banbary in Exeter and toured Devonshire on foot, this being many years before railways were established.
• According to his own account he arrived in Australia in 1852 aboard the Agincourt and landed in Adelaide. He appears, however, on a list of passengers on that vessel that reached Adelaide in 1855. He worked as a baker and took part in an unsuccessful 1856 strike, then worked as a coal lumper and coal trimmer at Port Adelaide.
• His wife Charlotte, who had arrived in Adelaide aboard the Lord Ragland on 7 February 1856, was convicted of theft and sentenced to nine months imprisonment in December 1867. The marriage had ended by 1869 when she married again (to William Henry Hyde). Jim Yard seems to have abandoned his first family, as four of his sons (Francis, George, Henry and John) appear to have been state wards in South Australia at some time.
• By his own account Jim moved to Melbourne about 1867 after an unsuccessful period as a gold prospector in Gympie, Queensland. He joined the Bakers’ Union in Melbourne and took a prominent part in the successful struggles of 1869 and 1872 re wages and conditions.
• He appears to have gone by the name Wardley from about the 1880s although most of his children retained the name Yard or Yarde.
• A member of the Melbourne Trades Hall Council and Eight Hours Committee, he took part in eight-hour processions until about 1925.
• He was a founder, secretary and from 1882 president of the Melbourne Operative Bakers Union, holding prominent positions in that union for more than 50 years. Led a strike when aged 92. Remained president when aged 99 and was believed to have been the oldest trade union office holder in the world.
• A hearty and vigorous centenarian who became more radical as he aged, ‘staunch believer in political action’.
• Cause of death: senile debility. Press reports at his death stated that he was survived by “a large family” “seventeen children” However, that seems to have only included progeny of his second wife. The total children born to him might have been as high as twenty-four by two wives.

Sources
Australian Worker, 2 May 1923, p 15, 28 October 1925, p 1,16 December 1925, p 1, 2 June 1926, p 5; Westralian Worker (Perth), 13 November 1925; Baking Trades Gazette, 19 November 1914, 20 November 1915; Labor Call (Melbourne), 22 April 1909; Worker, 5 July 1906; 17 October 1907; H. J. Gibbney and Ann G. Smith, A Biographical Register 1788-1939, vol 2 (Canberra, 1987).