DOUGLASS, BENJAMIN (1830-1904), trade unionist, was born on 21 March
1830 at Greenwich, Kent, England, son of John Douglass, a Quaker and
Chartist. As an apprentice plumber he married Mary Stacy at Wokingham,
Berkshire. In January 1855, described as a bricklayer, he arrived at
Portland in the
Shand; next month he went to Melbourne where he
at once became involved in trade union and radical activity,
particularly the agitation for the eight-hour day, in which he was
prominent for thirty years. In 1856 he became the first president of the
Operative Plasterers' Society and a member of the first eight-hour
committee which successfully gained the concession for some building
trades workers on 21 April. Douglass was convinced of the need for
continued union organization and in 1857 was one of the prime movers in
the United Trades Association, which became the Trades Hall and Literary
Institute Committee. He also saw the need for unskilled workers to
belong to the union movement and helped to form an Organization of
Labourers and in 1859, with C. J. Don, the short-lived Political and
Social Labour League.
By 1860 Douglass was one of the outstanding trade union leaders of
Victoria. He had helped to clarify conditions in industries where
subcontracting applied. In the 1860s his industrial work led him into
political action to seek protection for local industries. In 1865 he was
chairman of the Central Protection Committee and of Graham Berry's
election committee, and in 1870 his prominence was recognized in his
election as president of the Victorian Industries Protection League. In
1871 he was defeated at Collingwood in the general election. In 1872 he
became secretary of the Australian Democratic Association in support of
the Duffy ministry. He moved to Warrnambool where in 1874 he became
secretary of a coal-mining company, helped to establish the Artisans'
School of Design and became an employer and a member of the borough
council.
Returning to Melbourne, Douglass became a clerk of works in the
public service in 1881 and later an inspector; in 1884 he supervised the
building of the law courts. In 1882 he had become a council member of
the Working Men's College and was its vice-president until 1885. He was
president of the Trades Hall Council in 1884-86 and chaired the 1884
Intercolonial Trades Union Congress. His increasing conservatism was
reflected in his leadership of the trustees of the Trades Hall in the
bitter struggle for control with affiliated unions in 1884-87. By the
late 1890s he was opposed to strike action, although he had been
prominent in the 1890 maritime strike and had encouraged George
Higinbotham to donate to strike funds. Douglass was one of the two
mourners who accompanied the family when Higinbotham was buried in 1892.
Douglass remained active in community affairs until his death on 4
February 1904. He was buried in the Melbourne general cemetery, survived
by five of his eight children.
For more than fifty years Douglass played a significant role in
Victorian industrial history. His responsible co-operation with
employers indicated the effects of protection in the colony and
conditioned his drift away from the radical phase of his early career.
On his death N. Levi of the Chamber of Manufactures commented that 'the
men who were mixed up with the eight hours movement in the early days
were different to what they are now'.