© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

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Read more about the article Eight-hour Day campaign may resonate today

Eight-hour Day campaign may resonate today

The idea that employers might be robbed of the power to set work hours for their employees at almost any level they chose scandalised the English-speaking world in the 1800s. Bosses declared the idea was preposterous. It would make businesses unprofitable, drive some to the wall, hurt the poor and upset the natural order of things. Nevertheless, despite those arguments and despite sometimes ferocious punishments for workers found guilty of working together to press for better pay and conditions, some people kept arguing that eight hours was a fair working day. The idea was that, in…

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Read more about the article The Mont Pelee eruption of May 1902
Artist's impression of the Roddam escaping the eruption - from a cigarette card.

The Mont Pelee eruption of May 1902

The recent volcanic eruption near Tonga in the South Pacific has reminded me of a gruelling tale of another eruption, 120 years ago, at Martinique in the Eastern Carribean. About 30,000 people died in perhaps the deadliest volcanic eruption in human history. Wikipedia has a comprehensive entry on the topic. This account comes from the book Ships, by Frank C. Bowen. Captain Edward William Freeman, a board of trade examiner, went through a terrible experience . . . with his steamer the Roddam when the disastrous eruption of Mont Pelee destroyed the town of Saint Pierre…

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Read more about the article John Jobson’s BHP and other photographs
A BHP loco in 1927, John Jobson and Ellaroo, the first ship in Newcastle's "new" floating dock, 1929

John Jobson’s BHP and other photographs

A bundle of photographic prints, handed to me recently, jogged my memory somehow. The matt black envelopes in which the photos had been stored - evidently for a long time - were familiar to me for a start. Then there was the compact writing on the back, and the reference to the photos having been taken in the late 1920s and early 1930s by a metallurgist at Newcastle's BHP steelworks. I went scurrying to my filing cabinets and, sure enough, I had two photos by the same photographer, given to me by a woman who had…

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