Labour Australia

Donald McPherson, 1916

Sydney Mail, 18 October 1916, p 7

Donald McPherson (c.1887-?) wharf labourer, gaoled Industrial Workers of the World member, trade unionist and Socialist

Birth: c. 1887 in Scotland. Death: not known. No Religion. 

• Arrested on 23 September 1916 and charged with others of the “IWW Twelve” that he did “devise, compass, imagine to conspire, to declare war against His Majesty the King . . . “. Charge later altered to conspiracy to commit arson. Further charged with stealing a quantity of flannel shirts … the property of the Commonwealth”.
• Convicted at the Central Criminal Court on 2 December 1916, sentenced by Judge R. D. Pring to 15 years hard labour. Stealing charge dropped. In March 1917 his prison term was reduced to 10 years on appeal.
• After a judicial inquiry by Judge N. K. Ewing in 1920 found that he had been unjustly convicted, McPherson was released from Long Bay gaol on 2 August 2020. Reported to be working as a seaman in the 1920s.
• Appeared on Communist Party of Australia platform with some of his IWW colleagues in October 1936.