Item 11 - Photograph of Alfred Joseph Taylor

John Earle was a Tasmanian politician and trades union organizer. He was MHA for Waratah 1906-1909 and for Franklin 1909-1916, Attorney General and Premier 1909 and 1914-1916 and was Senator for Tasmania in the Commonwealth Parliament 1917-1922. John Earle (known as Jack) was born at Bridgewater, the son of C.S. Earle and Ann Theresa (McShane). He was apprenticed to a blacksmith in Hobart in 1882 and enrolled in classes in engineering and science, economics and socialism at the Mechanics Institute and became friendly with the City Librarian, A.J. Taylor. Later he became a trades union organizer and in 1901 chaired a meeting at Zeehan to form the Workers Political League (which became the Labor Party) and was elected its first president, demanding adult suffrage, an 8 hour day and free education. In October 1909 he led the first Tasmanian Labor Party Government but as a minority it lasted only a week. As Premier in 1914, a year of drought, he imported wheat to keep prices down. He married in 1914 Susanna Jane Blackmore, an ardent member of the Labor Party and a vegetarian and theosophist. They had no children. In 1932 John Earle died of cancer at Oyster Cove and was cremated in Melbourne. For more information see: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/earle-john-6077

Alfred Joseph Taylor (1849-1921), librarian and publicist, was born on 24 March 1849 in Hobart Town, son of Thomas Joseph Taylor and his wife Emma. His father, son of Rev. Thomas Taylor, Witney, Oxfordshire, England, was transported from Sydney in 1842 under a life sentence for forgery; in 1849 he was a schoolteacher but from 1853 served as under-keeper at the New Norfolk Hospital for the Insane, and died in 1881 aged 69. In New Norfolk as a child Alfred suffered an accident which crippled him for life. He received little formal education but enthusiasm for books won him a post as librarian at New Norfolk in his teens. In January 1874 he became librarian of the Tasmanian Public Library which had been constituted in 1870. The appointment caused some stir, but he held it until his death. For more information see: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/taylor-alfred-joseph-4691