Labour Australia

Albert Fair, caricature by Dick Ovenden, 1924

Labor Call (Melbourne), 28 February 1924, p 11

Albert Edward Fair (1888- 1976) iron turner, motor mechanic, trade union header 

Birth: March 1888 at Woolwich, England, son of Benjamin Charles Fair, labourer in Royal Arsenal, and Eliza Ann, née Russell (-1971). Marriage: 1923 in Victoria to Adelaide Myrtle Talent. Death: 19 November 1976 at Brighton, Melbourne, Victoria. 

• Served apprenticeship in England, joining Amalgamated Engineering Union.
• To Australia, 1911 where worked at Kelly & Lewis, Melbourne.
• Enlisted in Australian Imperial Force in February 1915, served in the 22nd Battallion, saw active service at Gallipoli from August to December 1915. Was wounded in action in France in July 1916. Returned to Australia from England in December 1916. Discharged in Melbourne on 27 May 1917. His gunshot wound to his right shoulder prevented a return to engineering trade. Granted a pension of £3 per fortnight. His younger brother Harold William Fair (1893-1967) also served in the AIF.
• 1918 was elected bookkeeper of Amalgamated Engineering Union. From 1920 to 1953 was Victorian district secretary — conservative trade union leader who was ‘a restraining influence on those who desired to “pull the place down”’.
• Australian Labor Party member who comfortably held power until retirement despite internecine hostility in union and branch.

Sources
Labor Call, 22 January 1953; Tom Sheridan, Mindful militants: the Amalgamated Engineering Union in Australia, 1920-1972 (Cambridge, England, 1975).