Emma Miller
| Emma Miller | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
Emma Holmes 26 June 1839 Chesterfield, England |
| Died | 22 January 1917 (aged 77) Toowomba, Queensland, Australia |
| Occupation | Trade union organiser and suffragist |
Emma Miller (26 June 1839 – 22 January 1917) was a pioneer trade union organiser, suffragist, and key figure in organisations which led to the founding of the Australian Labor Party in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Miller was born on 26 June 1839 in Chesterfield, England, the eldest of four children born to Martha Holmes, née Hollingworth, and her husband Daniel. Her parents had strong Unitarian beliefs and were active in the Chartist movement.
At the age of 18 she eloped and married a bookkeeper, Jabez Mycroft Silcock. They had four children together; however, Silcock died and Miller took up sewing to support the family. In 1874 Miller married William Calderwood, and they migrated with Miller's children to Queensland, arriving in 1879. Calderwood died in 1880, and Miller married Andrew Miller in Brisbane in 1886.
In Queensland, Miller worked as a gentlemen's shirt maker and seamstress. Along with May Jordan McConnel, she formed the first women's union in Brisbane, the Brisbane Women's Union, in September 1890 supported by a campaign by William Lane in the Brisbane Worker newspaper. As a seamstress she gave evidence at the 1891 Royal Commission into Shops, Factories and Workshops, that highlighted the existence of many sweatshops that exploited women workers. Through this period Miller was an active participant in the Early Closing Association.
With the great strikes of the 1890s, Miller was active in supporting the 1891 Australian shearers' strike and in setting up the Prisoners' Relief Fund for the twelve arrested strike leaders. While William Lane chose to set up in 1892 the New Australia community in Paraguay along socialist lines which attracted many labour activists, Miller believed Lane was "opting out of the struggle" and became a foundation member of the Workers' Political Organisation, a forerunner of the Australian Labor Party in Queensland. She became colloquially known as "Mother Miller", as she was the most dominant female figure in the Queensland labour movement.
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