Industrial Workers of the World

Melbourne 2006

There was a small celebration to mark the beginning of the Spanish Revolution "July 19th 1936-2006" outside the Spanish Tourist Bureau in Melbourne.

It was organised by long time anarchist Dr Joseph Toscano

As others focused upon the Spanish revolutionaries themselves an IWW member read out the following:

"One rebel worker who went to Spain and died there alas was IWW organiser speaker and editor of Direct Action 1928-29 Ted Dickinson. Dickinson, Edward Alexander (1903 - 1937) Birth: 21 April 1903, Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England Death: 12 February 1937, Spain

DICKINSON, EDWARD ALEXANDER Son of Edward Dickinson, fish merchant, and his wife Mary Cormack, née Ross. Ted came to Melbourne with his family as a small child. His father was killed soon after and his mother remarried and moved to New South Wales.

In 1923 he returned to Melbourne, studied with the Workers' Educational Association and became friends with Charlie Reeves, one of the Industrial Workers of the World leaders who had been jailed in 1917.

Dickinson became a leading figure in the I.W.W. in Melbourne and later in Sydney, where he became known as a Domain orator: he was a stirring, enthusiastic and fiery speaker. In 1928-29 Dickinson was in Adelaide to revive the I.W.W. newspaper Direct Action. He was extensively involved in political activity with those out of work.

He was especially concerned with attempted evictions he tried to organize unemployed workers who gathered daily at the Adelaide Labour Exchange.

During the 1928 waterfront strike Dickinson was active both in Adelaide and the Port. On 1 October 1928 he was arrested as 'one of the leaders' of a 'riot' which had occurred on 27 September when 5000 unionists drove scabs off the ships at the Port. Dickinson was charged with 'unlawfully taking part in a riot' and 'seditious libel' for several articles in Direct Action.

He received six months imprisonment for sedition and three months for riot and was fined £50.

On 19 October 1929 at Holy Trinity Church, Adelaide, Dickinson married Myrtle Ellen Ankers, tailoress. At the end of that year he was employed as the representative of an oil company which sent him to England.

There, again unemployed, he set up a fish stall at Battersea markets and survived the depression. He remained politically active, he went on hunger marches and spoke regularly in Hyde Park. He helped form a broad organization to oppose Sir Oswald Mosley's Fascists and the Chamberlain government's appeasement policies. In 1935 when the Labor Party leader Clement Attlee condemned the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, Italy's foreign minister challenged him to a duel.

Shortly after, speaking at Hyde Park, Dickinson accepted the challenge on behalf of the peace movement; he added that he had spent many years in the Australian bush and was familiar with firearms though he preferred boxing gloves.

At the end of 1936 Dickinson went to Spain to fight with the International Brigade against Franco. He became a lieutenant, second in charge of a machine-gun company of the British Battalion. Reports emphasized his abilities as a 'born leader' and organizer. His commanding officer described him as 'a brilliant man with a dynamic personality'.

Dickinson was captured by the Fascist forces on 12 February 1937; after two comrades were shot, he is reputed to have said: 'If I had a bunch of Australian bushmen here we'd have pushed you bastards into the sea long ago'. He was immediately taken aside and shot. As the order to fire was given, he called to the other prisoners: 'Keep your chins up, boys. Salud!'.

Select Bibliography Direct Action (Adelaide), 5 May, 20 Oct, 17 Nov 1928, 9 Feb 1929; The IWW's weekly Industrial Worker and One Big Union Monthly featured reports by Pat Read and other Wobblies in the Spanish trenches. Mail (Adelaide), 11 Feb 1939; N. Palmer et al, Australians in Spain (Syd, 1948); R. N. Wait, Reactions to Demonstrations and Riots in Adelaide, 1928 to 1932 (M.A. thesis, University of Adelaide, 1973); L. Fox (ed), Depression Down Under (Syd, 1977); SOURCE: Author: Ray Broomhill, 'Dickinson, Edward Alexander (1903 - 1937)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 8, Melbourne University Press, 1981, p. 302.