Miners Hunter valley - Daniel Galvin

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Permalink Reply by Linda Ottery on January 12, 2010 at 8:00am

Hi,

I have inherited all my mother's paper's & newspaper cuttings etc. One of them is about a William Morgan, celebrating 23 years as Secretary of the Federated Moulder's (Metal's) Union of Australia & was employed, not as a miner, but in numerous moulding factories, including: Moyes & Donald (Stockton); J. Rodgers, (Newcastle & Stockton); Barclay's (Wickham);Goninan's; Govt. Dockyard (Walsh Island) & BHP. He was also President of the Newcastle Iron Trades Council & would have known the mines as well as the founderies as this council "was composed of most of the key trades".

Unfortunately this article (as is the case with most of her (or my Grandmother's) cuttings) is undated & unsourced - just bits of newspaper paper cuttings, stuck on a piece of cardboard!!

The two trades must be linked somehow, and I would really appreciated any directions you could give as to how to source or find out more about this William Morgan (actually 3 generations with the same name, so not sure which one, but all worked in the Newcastle area)

Many thanks from Linda

PS How do you add tags?

Permalink Reply by A Whiteford on May 28, 2010 at 12:11am

Hi apologies for delay in replying. You need to create a user name on the newspaper site, whatever you like and a password. The when you search for articles on the site and find an article of interest, there is an option for tagging it. The tag could be for example, Morgan Fed Moulders. Make up a tag or tags that will be meaningful for you.
You can print articles of interest and they come out with the name and date of the paper on the printed copy which is really useful. I had the same as you, a couple of articles, in this case obituaries for my great grandfather with no idea which paper they were from. I've found both of them recently in my searching which has been great.
Anne

Permalink Reply by Rosie on February 16, 2010 at 3:35pm

My father's line were coal miners in the Hunter Valley- mostly Wallsend, Plattsburgh and Minmi, but members also worked at lambton, Elermore Vale, Kurri Kurri, Abermain, Kearsley and Cessnock.

My ealiest miner was John SYME who arrived in 1858 on the Golconda and worked in Minmi. His son William SYME arrived on the Persia in 1863 and died in the first underground fire in the Wallsend Colliery, leaving a wife and 6 young children without support.

William walked home after the explosion, and died at home some days later - the only medical assistance was by the local doctor, with no hospital or other health care assistance available.

From then on, the family were involved in the union movement, fighting for miners' rights and workplace safety. William's son-in-law Daniel REES became genereal president of the Miners Federation, and later a member of Parliament, and another son-in-law John SHAW was arrested for participation in the Wallsend miners'riot in 1888.

The family were part of the fundraising which led to the establishment of the Wallsend and District Miners Hospital in 1892- almost 100 years later when the hospital was closed, members of the family formed the community picket line which successfully lobbied for the continuation of health services on the site.
Rosie