William Trenwith
| William Trenwith | |
|---|---|
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| Senator for Victoria | |
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In office 1 January 1904 – 30 June 1910 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
15 July 1846 Launceston, Tasmania |
| Died | 26 July 1925 (aged 79) Camberwell, Victoria, Australia |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Political party |
Independent (1904–09) Liberal (1909–10) |
| Occupation | Tinsmith, unionist |
William Arthur Trenwith (15 July 1846 – 26 July 1925) was a pioneer trade union official and labour movement politician for Victoria, Australia.
Born to convict parents at Launceston, Tasmania, he followed his father's trade as a bootmaker. 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. He 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.
As one of the founding members of the Victorian Operative Bootmakers Union in 1879 he served as its Secretary in 1883. He 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. He advocated the abolition of outwork in the bootmaking industry to eliminate cheap labour and encourage unionisation.
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.
In 1886, he was elected President of the Trades Hall Council, and was also made a Life Governor of the Homeopathic Hospital that year. By 1890 he was seen as a Trades Hall bureaucrat being opposed by radicals such as Chummy Fleming about working conditions, who accused Trenwith and other moderate THC bureaucrats, of 'working with blood-sucking capitalists.'
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