An older generation of my compatriots would regard an Oxford history of Australia as an oxymoron. Quite early in the preparation of my own volume in the series of that name, I became interested in Bill Somerville, a trade-unionist who for nearly forty years served as the workers' representative on the industrial tribunal of Western Australia. A skilled craftsman (his union, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, rejoiced in the title of 'the tin gods'), he grew up, with the Australian labour movement, in the hungry Nineties when troops were used to crush the shearers, miners and transport workers. His whole life was dedicated to the creation of institutions that would prevent the recurrence of such hardships and injustices, and his beliefs - rather, his certainties - provide a roll-call of the advanced nationalist programme.

LRB 28 September 1989 | PDF Download