David ‘Di’ Williams (1861-1951) coalminer, gaoled trade union leader
Birth: 22 April 1861 at Forest Creek, Victoria, son of William Williams (1829-1890), collier, and Hannah ‘Ann’, née Williams (1831-1903). Both parents had been born in Glamorgan, Wales, and arrived in Melbourne aboard the Marian Moore in December 1854. Marriage: 29 October 1881 at Lambton, NSW, to Jane Bullerwell (born in Durham, England) by a Congregational minister. They had six daughters (one died in infancy) and one son. Death: 5 July 1951 in a private hospital at Paddington, Sydney, NSW. Cremated. Religion: Congregational? Or Primitive Methodist (like his father).
- Came to Newcastle about 1871 with his parents and siblings. Worked in the Lambton colliery as a trapper boy then as a wheeler in New Lambton before “going on the coal” there.
- From 1881 lived at the Glebe, near Hamilton, Newcastle, where he raised his family.
- From 1885 to 1919 Williams was a suburban correspondent for the Newcastle Morning Herald.
- In 1909, when he represented the Shortland miners’s lodge on the miners’ delegate board, he and twelve other men were charged, under the Industrial Disputes Act, with inciting a strike and fined by Judge Charles Heydon £100, or two months imprisonment. All refused to pay the fine and were gaoled. Williams surrendered to the police on 4 March 1910 and was taken to East Maitland gaol on 8 March. He was released after only four weeks without explanation.
- For thirteen years he worked at the government quarry at Waratah obtaining stone for the breakwater extension at Nobbys. After retiring in 1919 he moved to live in Bondi, Sydney.
- He had joined the Independent Order of Oddfellows in 1879, and the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows in 1883.
- On a return visit to Newcastle in the 1940s he called on his old comrade, and gaoled trade unionist, Amram Lewis.
Citation details
Chris Cunneen, 'Williams, David (Di) (1861–1951)', People Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://peopleaustralia.anu.edu.au/biography/williams-david-di-32124/text39694, accessed 2 February 2023.