Frederick John Riley further papers, 1922-1967

MLMSS 8973

fonds

1922-1967

Textual Records, Graphic Materials, Photographs

1037304

1 photograph - gelatin silver - 45.5 x 11.3 cm
0.164 metres of textual material (1 box)

Frederick John Riley (1886-1970), political activist and trade unionist, was born on 18 May 1886 at Stirling, South Australia. In 1916 he became secretary of the Victorian Council of the Australian Peace Alliance. Riley was a founding member (1918) of the Y Club, a discussion group of socialists and rationalists, which he later served on as secretary. In 1919 he took part in the Melbourne waterfront strike. He helped to collect and distribute more than £10,000 in relief, and to negotiate a settlement of the dispute. After the unions had appointed him (1919) to collect evidence for the Commonwealth royal commission on the basic wage, his career took a crucial turn in 1922 when he became secretary of the Manufacturing Grocers' Employees' Federation of Australia and of its Victorian branch. From the mid-1920s Riley was a powerful force in the Victorian Labour movement. President of the Trades Hall Council in 1931-32 and President of the Victorian branch of the Australian Labor Party in 1941-42. Strongly anti-communist since the 1930s, Riley was one of the delegates of the 'old' right-wing Victorian executive refused admission to the A.L.P.'s federal conference in Hobart in 1955, and one of the few non-Catholics to align himself with the Democratic Labor Party (State President 1960-61). He retired as union secretary in 1961. Between 1913 and 1955 he had made four attempts to enter the New South Wales, Commonwealth and Victorian parliaments, standing once as a socialist, twice as an Australian Labor Party candidate and once for the Democratic Labor Party.

Reference:
Australian Dictionary of Biography
http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/riley-frederick-john-11527 (Accessed June 2013)

Folder 1
Item 1
State Election Figures 1922 [typescript]

Item 2
Railway and Tramway Service of New South Wales
Complimentary Banquet Programme - To the Hon. J. T. Lang, Premier of New South Wales, and his Ministry, and Presentation of an Illuminated Address to the Premier by Employees of the Railway and Tramway Service of New South Wales, Town Hall Sydney, 28 June 1926. Signed by John B. Lamont, Michael Dunn, Robert Barton, Ernest E. Barker, Patrick F. Mooney, Robert Lindsay and A. C. Wallace

Item 3
Victorian election circulars, dated 27 September 1937 and 19 November 1942

Item 4
Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party Senate Selection Polling Pledge Sheet, 1942

Item 5
The Hunter District Water Board
Description and Plans of the Tomago Sandbeds Water Supply Works and Chichester Storage Reservoir and Gravitation Main, 12 September 1944

Item 6
Commonwealth of Australia Postmaster-General's Department
Letters from F. C. Barnes, Public Relations Officer, Commonwealth of Australia Postmaster-General's Department to W. A. Bayley, Central School, Crookwell, N.S.W. re early postal history of Marsden, Quandialla, Bland, Grenfell, Weddin, Warraderry, Bumbaldry, Bimbi, Greenethorpe, Pullabooka and Caragabel Offices, July 1953-October 1953

Item 7
The Manufacturing Grocers' Employees' Federation of Australia (Victorian Branch)
Letter from Frederick John Riley, The Manufacturing Grocers' Employees' Federation, 2 May 1955 with Central Executive Report of the Australian Labor Party (Victoria), 1954-1955 and Australian Labor Party Annual Conference Agenda Paper, 29 April 1955
Note from F. J. Riley providing information on S.C. Margetts of the Manufacturing Grocers Union, 29 May 1965

Item 8
Australian Labour Party
Press Statement by Senator F. P. McManus, Trades Hall Melbourne, 5 October 1956

Item 9
Australian Railways Union (New South Wales Branch)
Report on the Economic and Financial Position of the N.S.W. State Government Railways by Lloyd Ross, State Secretary, Australian Railways Union, New South Wales Branch

Item 10
Draft press statement written by Frederick John Riley, Democratic Labour Party, in relation to compulsory levies made by the Unions


Folder 2
Political Labour Council
Letter from Frederick John Riley enclosed with badges of the Political Labor Council and the Labor Anti-War Committee, 17 April 1965


Folder 3
Invitations, Charity Seals and Biographies
Letter, invitations and poster to the Leather Trades Ball, Sydney Trocadero, Friday 26 March 1954
Seals for the Anti-Tuberculosis Association of N.S.W. and The Queen Victoria Homes for T.B.; Seals for the Citizens T.B. League (N.S.W.), St. George Festival of Flowers, The Sub-Normal Children's Welfare Association
Letterhead for The Men of The Trees, 409 Pitt Street, Sydney and the Blue Mountains Historical Society
Biography of Joseph Jackson O.B.E., 10 October 1967 [typescript copy]
Biography of C.P. Halik, Owner of Pauer & Co. Pty. Ltd, 12 February 1957 [typescript copy]
Programme of Tree Planting Ceremony in the Prime Ministers' Avenue of Oaks Jackson Park, Faulconbridge, by Mrs H. Holt on behalf of The Prime Minister of Australia, The Right Honourable, Mr H. Holt, 4 October 1967

Folder 4
Photograph of unknown group, undated

Some copies of typescript material and printed material have been annotated by Frederick John Riley

Photograph is folded and torn on end