Labour Australia

Henry James Hannah (1873-1944) builders’ labourer, trade union leader

Birth: 1873 in Whroo, Victoria, to Scottish-born parents James Smith Hannah, miner, and Elizabeth, née Irving. Marriage: 1894 to Mary Elizabeth Humphreys. They had five sons and four daughters. Death: 8 October 1944 at Carrum, Victoria. 

• Entered the building industry in Melbourne in 1893.
• To Western Australia with his brother Martin in the 1890s, and was active in the 1897 building trade dispute.
• Returned to Melbourne in 1899. Secretary of the Builders' Labourers’ Union from December 1909 to September 1910, when he became founding secretary of the Australian Builders Labourers’ Federation.
• In 1911 he brought navvies and labourers’ assistants into the one union. Retired from union office in November 1912, succeeded by B. A. Mulvogue.
• Worked as an assessor on behalf of builders’ labourers until about 1919.

Sources
Humphrey McQueen, We built this country: builders’ labourers and their unions, 1787 to the future (Port Adelaide, 2011), pp 83. 141-2.