Obituaries Australia

Word has just been received of the death at Camden (N.S.W.) of Robert Prince Bambrick better known among his old associates as 'Bob' Prince, one of the union prisoners of 1891.

The son of a pioneer father and mother — his mother was the first white woman to go into the Lake Hope district in South Australia, where Bob's early years were spent — he grew up a typical bushman with all the best characteristics that life outback so often produces. Coming to Queensland a young man, he engaged in the pastoral industry as shearer, and was soon imbued with the spirit of unionism, then sweeping over the West. The big industrial upheavals of the day saw him playing his part in the working-class fight for emancipation. He took his place on the strike committee only to fall, along with his associates on that body, a victim to the vindictiveness of those in authority, and to have to endure, as a consequence, three years in St. Helena. Afterwards he stood for Parliament in the Labor interests, but, under the loaded franchise then in vogue, was unsuccessful. He spent the greater part of his life in Central Queensland, and was particularly well known in the Sapphire district, where he resided for 25 years, part of the time as a selector. He was unmarried, and was 77 years of age.