People Australia

Alan Charles (Beau) Williams (1910-c.2005) fitter, trade union official and Communist

Birth: 1910 at Ballarat, Victoria, son of native-born parents Charles Williams (1866-1916), mining manager, and Henrietta, née Matthews (1874-1957). Marriage: 1939 in Victoria to Laural Jean Sheehan. They had four children. Death: by 2005 probably in Victoria. 

• After schooling, he worked as an apprentice and then as a fitter and turner at the Ballarat North Railway Workshops for about thirty years. He was an active member and later an honorary life member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union (later Amalgamated Metal Workers’ Union).
• Secretary of the Ballarat Trades Hall Council and the Ballarat branch of AEU, union delegate to Ballarat Trades Hall Council.
• Joined the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) in the early 1930s, influenced by and a supporter of Teddy Rowe. Active in unemployed and Free Speech campaigns in the 1930s, regularly held at Galloway Monument Ballarat.
• Left the CPA in 1946, though Grouper control precluded his joining the Ballarat branch of the Australian Labor Party until 1955. Active in Ballarat ALP from that time. Was a delegate to the Victorian ALP and Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress. Member Victorian ALP executive.
• On 1 January 2001 he received the Centenary Medal for long service to the trade union movement and for assisting families during the Great Depression.
• Among his friends was Labor parliamentarian Reg Pollard.

Sources
Recorder (Melbourne), No. 245, March 2005, p 5; Fact, 21 November 1963; A. C. Williams papers, 1977.0085, University of Melbourne Archives.