Obituaries Australia

Frank Ferry, assistant secretary of the Sydney Branch of the Waterside Workers' Federation, died of cancer last week.

Impressive funeral ceremony included a Memorial Service at the WWF rooms in Sussex Street last Thursday.

Frank Ferry lay in state in the rooms flanked by wharfie pall bearers dressed in working clothes.

A funeral oration was delivered by Edgar Ross Editor of Common Cause. Other speakers included WWF President Dutchie Young, Secretary Tom Nelson and rank and filer Tom Walsh.

The service concluded with the Funeral March and the body was escorted by hundreds of wharfies part of the way to the chapel from which the funeral left last Friday.

Frank Ferry was born, lived and died at Millers Point. He was a coal lumper who was victimised after the 1917 strike.

Taken into the WWF with other victimised workers, Frank soon became a Guardian of the WWF (a position since abolished).

In 1930 he became WWF Sydney Branch treasurer; in 1935 a Vigilance Officer and in 1940 Assistant Secretary, a position he held until his death.

Tom Nelson, long an associate of Frank's, told Tribune that Frank Ferry "was an extremely honest and methodical man; an example by whom all union officials can profit.

"The union always came first with Frank.

"I have been his associate for years and although he was a staunch ALP member and I am a staunch Communist, never once did we face our members with a divided policy and we faced them in all sorts of crises.

"We were united because we based our approach on the union; what was good for it and the membership.

"Frank will be missed by the Federation."