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Trade
Union Banners Collection Guide
Introduction
The Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery owns two trade union banners,
both from the late 19th century and each reflects its time and place.
Significance and collection rationale
Each of the Museum’s trade union banners is significant in
its own right.
The Railway Workers banner is the historic icon par excellence of
the Launceston Railway Workshops site, since 2001 a major new exhibition
space for the Museum. It was unusual for industrial workers to be
recorded in such minute detail during the late 19th century, and
it is this detail which makes the Railway Workers banner so special.
On the other hand, the banner of the Federated Tanners, Curriers,
Fellmongers and Fancy Leather Dressers Union is impressive for its
sheer dramatic presence. Made from a single bullock hide and thought
to be the largest remaining banner of this type in the world, the
leather banner’s survival is intricately linked to the material
from which it is made.
Discussion
Both banners are relics of a pivotal period in Tasmania’s
trade union movement, the Eight Hour Day campaign. Their motto of
‘8 Hours Work, 8 Hours Recreation, 8 Hours Rest’ is
prominently displayed on the face of the Railway Workers banner.
Likewise, the words ‘Labour’ and ‘Rest’
surround the missing sections of the leather banner, and include
part of the uniquely Australian entwined triple-8 symbol, which
appeared on the majority of union banners painted in Australia between
1880 and World War 1.
In January 1892, the Tasmanian noted that the Eight Hours
movement had begun only a few months before, and fully endorsed
the annual celebration being held on 26 January, ‘the anniversary
day of the colonies’. Trade unions created their banners especially
for these annual parades, which dwindled in popularity after the
First World War, as workers found other things to do on their public
holidays. Gradually the banners were forgotten, hidden in the back
of storerooms and workshops, until a resurgence of interest in the
early 1980s.
Significant
items in this collection:
Banner of the Launceston Railway Workshops’ Railway Employees
Description:
Rectangular banner of silk laid on calico, strip lined on top and
bottom edges, hand painted with oils.
Front: Depicts Fitters’ Shop, Blacksmiths’ Shop, Painters’
Shop and the Carriage Builders’ Shop at each corner. Central
panel with ‘Launceston’ and the Tasmanian coat-of-arms
above the words ‘Railway Workshops’, and a central medallion
with steam locomotive, and ‘8 Hours Work, 8 Hours Recreation,
8 Hours Rest’ below the medallion.
Back: Depicts locomotive emerging from tunnel at night (top left),
with ‘Railway Employés’ written diagonally across
centre, and under-cover railway station (bottom right).
Measurements:
Banner (irregular): 2670 mm (h) x 3270 mm (w), with 200 mm fringe.
Support (hinged frame covered with coarse linen designed to fit
inside the supporting rods): 3000 mm (h) x 3490 mm (w) x 45 mm (d).
Original carrying pole: 4250 mm (h) x 4360 mm (w); includes turned
ends.
Creator: Designed and painted by Will Cumings at the Launceston
Examiner offices, December 1892.
Registration No.: QVM1987.H.0301
Associated
Information:
Rescued from the soot and grime of the Railway’s Blacksmith
Shop, and presented to the Museum in 1982, the Railway Workers banner
was lucky to survive. It is painted on silk, and as well as being
filthy, was dry and brittle with age. It required hours of painstaking
work by the Museum’s Conservation Department to return it
to some semblance of its former glory. Banner makers eventually
discovered that silk did not suit Australian conditions, and later
banners were made from cotton and linen fabrics.
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The
railway banner carried in Launceston’s 1916 Eight Hour
Day parade.
The Weekly Courier, 20.1.1916.
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The Railway Workers banner provides us with a wonderful record of
the work undertaken at the Inveresk site, as we can see from the
front
… five accurately painted scenes taken from photos, the
principal one being that of an engine on the line with a driver
(who is an old identity, and will be readily recognised) with his
hand on the starting lever, waiting the signal to go on, and the
whole ‘tout ensemble’ of the monstrous steam house is
excellent. In the left-hand top corner is a view of the fitters’
shop, with a glimpse of the intricate and expensive machinery used
there. On the opposite or right-hand corner is shown the shop where
the jolly smiths make the air resound with their jovial musical
sounds. The picture on the lower left-hand corner of the painting
shop, where several men are engaged decorating the exterior of some
carriages, is excellent. In the right-hand lower corner is a view
of the carriage builders’ shop, with carriages in process
of being put together, and various parts of same lying about in
seeming disorder. Examiner, 26.1.1893.
The back of the banner is equally as detailed, with paintings of
a night train emerging from a tunnel, and the long platforms of
a large modern railway station. The back also contains the intriguing
words, ‘Railway Employés’ in large letters. While
open to speculation, it simply appears that the artist ran out of
room to include the extra ‘e’. The train shown on both
sides of the banner is LWR No.5, which was converted to a 4-2-2
tender loco [Class A1] in 1888.
Not only do the painted scenes show us the Railway’s earliest
buildings, but also the men at work inside. Comparing the 1909 Blacksmiths
Shop to the ‘Smiths’ painting, allows us to see that
in all essentials the work remained the same. Each blacksmith and
his offsider, known as a ‘striker’, operated their own
workstation, which included a forge and an anvil, with a hammer
to one side for heavy forging work. What did change was the clothing,
especially the wearing of hats. As these scenes show, in the late
19th century hats were virtually a uniform, a way of distinguishing
one trade from another. By the time the Blacksmith Shop closed in
July 1994, clothing was much more casual. One of the last blacksmiths,
Michael Donovan says, ‘You never wore overalls in the summer
time, all we wore was a pair of trousers and a blue singlet and
probably a leather apron and sweat used to absolutely pour off you,
every fire would be going. Used to be a filthy place to work.’
The Blacksmith Shop remains as it was when the last workers left,
and is part of the Museum’s Inveresk displays.
Banner of the Federated
Tanners, Curriers, Fellmongers and Fancy Leather Dressers Union
Description:
Leather banner comprising a bullocks hide, painted both sides.
Front: Depicts two female figures, robed in red and blue, holding
tools of the trade. Above the central panel are unfurled ribbons
containing the words ‘United’ and ‘Tanners’,
with ‘United We Stand’ and ‘Divided We Fall’
on either side.
Back: Depicted on a background of green foliage, the kangaroo and
emu, with ‘Federated Tanners, Curriers’ Fellmongers
& Fancy Leather Dressers Union’ above, and in the centre
the coat-of-arms of Hobart and ‘Sic Fortis Hobartia Crevit’,
with the words ‘Labour’ and ‘Rest’ still
visible below.
Measurements:
Banner (irregular): c. 4500 mm x 3000 mm.
Said to have been 10 feet x 15 feet (when whole).
Creator: Painted by Harris & Watts, Sign Writers, 203 Elizabeth
Street, Hobart, c. 1890.
Registration No.: QVM2000.H.0381
Associated Information:
The Federated Tanners banner does not tell us a great deal about
the work of its tanners, curriers, fellmongers and dressers, trades
no longer familiar to us in the 21st century. Tanning is a lengthy
and laborious process, transforming animal skins into flexible,
waterproof, leather. Each trade played its part in preparing, steeping,
scouring, drying, finishing and colouring the hides.
The leather banner instead, follows the style of the time, which
included shields and slogans and allegorical figures. The two female
figures painted on the front of this banner are quite roughly drawn,
draped in red and blue robes, with a globe of the world and various
leatherworking tools. During the mid-19th century unions were anxious
to maintain a non-threatening image, and female figures were used
to represent universal ideals such as freedom, industry and truth.
This side of the banner also includes the words, ‘United We
Stand’ and ‘Divided We Fall’.
Although the natural bullock hide appears to form the shape of the
map of Tasmania, it is the Hobart coat-of-arms on the back of the
banner which identifies it as uniquely Tasmanian. The city’s
motto, ‘Thus in Strength did Hobart Grow’ (sic fortis
Hobartia crevit) also reinforces the sentiments of trade unionism.
This Tasmanian banner must have been made after 1890, because in
that year the Tanners’ and Curriers’ Society had to
borrow a banner from their fellow unionists in Victoria for the
Eight Hour Demonstration in Hobart. Certainly, any branch owning
this impressive 4.5 x 3 metre banner, would never need to borrow
from another state. The banner’s makers, Harris and Watts,
worked as sign writers in Elizabeth Street, Hobart, during the early
1890s, another reason for believing the banner was made then.
Walch’s Tasmanian Almanac for 1893 records the Amalgamated
Tanners and Curriers’ Society meeting fortnightly at the Hobart
Working Men’s Club under their Secretary M Barnett.
After the street parades ended, the United Tanners’ banner
hung in the Hobart Trades Hall. It was thrown out during a general
office clean-up in the 1960s but miraculously escaped being burnt.
It was saved simply because it was made of leather and leather could
be recycled. Pieces were cut off the bottom to make rowlocks for
a dinghy, before the banner was rediscovered and sold to the Museum
in 2000.
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