People Australia

Sid Wookey, n.d.

Sidney John Henry (Sid) Wookey (1900-1954), boilermaker and trade union official

Birth: 12 June 1900 at Williamstown, Victoria, eldest of eight children of native-born John Robert Wookey (1865-1945), railway gate-keeper, and Beatrice, née Strange (1878-1937), born at Cambridge, England. Marriage: 20 December 1924 at Holy Trinity church, Williamstown, to native-born Isabel Veronica Major (1900-1967). They had one daughter and one son. Death: 14 September 1954 in his usual residence at Farm Street, Newport, Victoria. Religion: Anglican. 

• The family was well-known in the Newport district, his father controlling for some years the Giffard street gates, which became known to many as Wookey’s gates; the family lived in the gate-house.
• Soon after he turned 18, having served in the naval reserve (like others in his family), Sid enlisted (for four years) in the Australian Imperial Force on 7 August 1918. He was discharged on 24 December the same year.
• He was apprenticed for five years at the Newport Railways Workshops and continued to work there as a boilermaker. A champion amateur boxer, he held several State and interstate railway titles at one time.
• From 1929 to 1947 he was part-time secretary of the Williamstown branch of the Boilermakers’ Society. Became full-time secretary of the Melbourne branch in 1947 and resigned from the Victorian Railways which meant sacrificing superannuation and other benefits.
• Federal councillor of the union for twenty years, he was elected general president in 1949 holding office until 1954, when he resigned due to ill-health.
• Commissioned justice of the peace at Newport. He was keenly interested in the formation of the Mechanics’ Institute (later the public library) at Newport and was a foundation member.
• Cause of death: coronary occlusion (suddenly), coronary occlusion (1 year and 2 years) and arteriosclerosis, hypertension (years).
• His son Sid was a prominent Williamstown footballer.

Sources
Boilermakers’ Report, October 1954, p 82.