People Australia

Katherine Williams, n.d.

Williams, Katherine Mary (Kath), née Chambers, previously Clarey [also known as Catherine] (1895-1975) teacher, trade union official and Communist 

Birth: 23 April 1895 at Lara, Victoria, daughter of Queensland-born Edward Crombie Chambers (1866-1916), clerk and trade unionist, and Jane Miriam, née Harding (1865-1918), born at Lara. Marriages: (1) 31 March 1917 with Churches of Christ forms at Box Hill, Melbourne, to native-born Percy James Clarey (1890-1960), a clerk, later a Labor politician. They had two sons. The marriage ended in divorce in December 1936. (2) 11 August 1945 at the office of the government statist, Melbourne, to Anthony (Andy) Williams (1909-1959), born at Gateshead, England, a coalminer at Wonthaggi, later a furnaceman. The marriage was unsuccessful. Death: 17 April 1975 in her usual residence at Atkinson Street, Oakleigh, Victoria. 

• Her father was foundation secretary of the Victorian Clerk’s Union and her mother was an active worker in the Coburg Labor League.
• Kath worked as a domestic arts school teacher. She joined the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) in 1936. She was an outstanding public speaker; active in Movement Against War and Fascism in the mid-1930s.
• Secretary of the Caulfield branch of the Australian Labor Party; president of the Labor Women’s Organising Committee but was deposed for opposing Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia and advocating sanctions.
• Moved to Portland as a teacher in 1938, continuing her activism with the CPA amongst the local farming community. Transferred to Wonthaggi in 1943, supporting industrial campaigns by local miners.
• Given responsibility by the Curtin government for arranging the provision of food for children as part of war-time evacuation plans. Participated in the Council for Women in War Work. Resigned from the Education Department in 1945. Returned to Melbourne after the break-up of her second marriage.
• After working for three months in a cafeteria, she was elected a full time organiser for the Liquor Trades Union (LTU) in 1948 with the support of Jim Coull. Elected to State Committee of the Communist Party in 1948.
• Proved an effective organiser of hotel employees. LTU delegate to Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC) and ACTU Congress.
• Played leading role in equal pay campaigns of 1950s and 1960s; founding secretary VTHC Equal Pay Committee, 1955, remaining only holder of the post; formed an effective, if unlikely working partnership with Equal Pay Committee president, Gil Hayes; organised numerous rallies, marches, petitions and conference to help place equal pay back on the industrial agenda, and worked to build an alliance with the Union of Australian Women; Australian observer at World Conference of Working Women, Budapest, 1956.
• When the CPA split in 1963, she joined CPA (Marxist-Leninist), becoming a member of the Central Committee and visited China. Retired from organisers’ post in 1967.
• Cause of death: cerebral atherosclerosis (3 years) and generalised arteriosclerosis (years). 

Sources
H. J. Gibbney & Ann G. Smith. A Biographical Register 1788-1939, vol 2 (Canberra, 1987); Recorder, no.76, June 1975; Alleyn Best, The History of the Liquor Trades Union in Victoria (North Melbourne, 1990); Tribune, 29 April 1975; information from Z. D’Aprano, 1998.