People Australia

Henry (Harry) Watson (1854-1937) painter, trade union leader and anti-Communist activist

Birth: 17 August 1854 at Milfield, Kirknewton, Northumberland, England, son of Henry Watson (b.1827), a saddler, born at Roxbugh, Scotland, and Mary, née Law (1819-c.1870), born at Wooler, Northumberland. Marriage: 1880 at Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, to Margaret Maillard (1858-1936). They had a daughter and two sons. Death: 5 December 1937 at his residence, ‘Jesmond’, Glenmorgan Street, East Brunswick, Melbourne. 

• Arrived with his wife and children in Victoria about 1885.
• President of the Brunswick branch of the Australian Labor Party in 1902-1905, he was selected ALP candidate for the State Legislative Assembly seat of Essendon in June 1904.
• Secretary of Operative Painters and Decoraters Union of Australia (OPDUA), Victoria, from 1912 to 1934. ‘A moderate, kindly patriarchal figure’ and conservative leader who enjoined membership to reject left-wing political ideas and strikes 1910s, persuading members at general meeting July 1919 that ‘every means of conciliation should be exhausted before resource is had to direct action involving a stoppage of work’.
• Discouraged the establishment of strike funds, preferring to prune union expenditure and begin ‘saving our money more carefully in the future’. Industry opponent of militant James Scott in the 1920s.
• Opposed establishment of One Big Union with elaborate bureaucratic and political scheme that inhibited radical potential of trade unions. Among measures suggested was proposal that work stoppages in building and other industries should be sanctioned by two-thirds majority of unionists organised via industry councils.
• Cooperative approach meant that the Victorian branch of the OPDUA grew increasingly remote from other unions in the building trades group.
• During the 1930s Depression he persuaded his branch to ignore the basic wage as a minimum condition of unemployment; membership plummeted.
• Watson countered Communist Party of Australia (CPA) initiatives within the OPDUA during the Depression, denouncing the United Front Against War and Fascism as an ‘extreme organisation’ and writing to OPDUA members involved, ‘pointing out the irregularity of their conduct’. Pressed for the expulsion of members who distributed CPA newspapers and propaganda.
• Retired due to ill-health in 1934 though his influence continued through his protegee Cecil Whitford, appointed as his office assistant 1918.
• Cause of death: chronic myocarditis (years) and cardiac failure (3 days).

Sources
Leslie John Louis, Trade unions and the Depression: a study of Victoria, 1930-1932 (Canberra, 1968); John Spierings, A brush with history: history of the Operative Painters' and Decorators' Union (Melbourne, 1993).