Labour Australia

Frederic Gordon Crane, known as Gordon Crane (1897-1949) teacher, adult educationist

Birth: 28 February 1897 in Queensland, son of native-born parents Frederick George Crane (1872-1945), fitter, and Margaret Jane, née Campbell. Marriage: 13 March 1922 to Sara Georgina Gibson (1893-1962) The marriage ended in divorce in November 1945. Death: 8 February 1949 in Brisbane, Queensland. 

• Graduated BA from Queensland University. Appointed teacher at Mt Morgan High School.
• Was a Workers’ Educational Association tutor in central Queensland, based at Rockhampton.
• Victimised by Queensland Labor government for assisting railwaymen during 1925 strike, was transferred to small country school outside Toowoomba. Resigned to take up position as Australian Railways Union (ARU) organiser. Studied for the Bar.
• Following abolition of position returned to Rockhampton where he became secretary of Trades Hall Board, 1929-32. 1932 appointed ARU education adviser, holding summer schools at Mt Tamborine, establishing library, and writing educational supplement for union journal.
• Published pamphlet, The Nature of the Capitalistic Crisis and the Way Out. Organised Militant Minority Movement from early 1930s.
• Served with Army Education Corps during WW II.
• As ‘an adult educationalist had no superior in Australia’.

Sources
The Advocate, 15 May 1926, 15 November 1926, 15 January 1927, 15 February 1949, 15 March 1949; Frank Nolan, You pass this way only once: Reflections of a trade union leader (edited by Denis Murphy, Brisbane, c.1974); Barbara Webster, “Fighting in the grand cause”: a history of the trade union movement in Rockhampton, 1907-1957, PhD thesis, CQUniversity, Rockhampton, 1999.