1. William Arthur Trenwith was an Australian labour movement politician and pioneer trade union official who served as the 1st leader of the Victorian branch of the Australian Labor Party from 1892 to 1900.
13 Facts About William Trenwith
1. 2.
William Trenwith served as Senator for Victoria from 1904 to 1910.
3.
Largely unschooled, barely literate, and with poor eyesight, Trenwith had a gift for oratory and public speaking which was to assist him in union organising and later as a politician.
4.
William Trenwith was involved during the late 1870s with the National Reform League where he agitated for protective tariffs, a land tax, and reform of the Victorian Legislative Council.
5.
William Trenwith was instrumental in coordinating the 1884 bootmakers' strike from Melbourne Trades Hall, which saw Victoria's first fullscale picketing and was an important campaign in the fight against sweated labour.
6.
William Trenwith advocated the abolition of outwork in the bootmaking industry to eliminate cheap labour and encourage unionisation.
7.
William Trenwith honed his public oratory skills at North Wharf on the banks of the Yarra River, in Melbourne on Sunday afternoons, along with Joseph Symes, Chummy Fleming, and Monty Miller and many other Australian labour movement activists and radicals of the time.
8.
William Trenwith was the lone labour representative in the Victorian Parliament until the following election in April 1892 when 13 labour aligned candidates were elected.
9.
In 1893 William Trenwith opposed Chummy Fleming's proposal for the affiliation of the Knights of Labor to the Trades Hall Council on the grounds that as a secret organisation it could not be organised industrially.
10.
William Trenwith was the only elected labour representative at the Federal Constitutional Convention, which drafted a constitution for the Federation of the six Australian colonies in 1901.
11.
From 1903 to 1910 William Trenwith served as an Independent Senator for Victoria.
12.
William Trenwith attempted to return to Victorian state politics at the 1911 Victorian state election, unsuccessfully contesting the seat of Gippsland North on behalf of the People's Party against the sitting Labor MLA James McLachlan.
13.
William Trenwith died in Melbourne on 26 July 1925, aged 79, survived by his third wife and his seven children.