Obituaries Australia

The two Vines, Thomas Walter and Charles Boniface, father and son, were both born in London — the father, W. T. Vine, in 1796, and the son, Charles B. Vine, in 1828. With strong proclivities for organisation, these two men were destined to achieve fame under the Southern Cross as the first executive officers of a movement which has since then permeated every civilised community in the world, namely — the Eight Hours system.

So closely identified in sympathy as in blood were these pioneers of the earliest Labor movement in Australia, that no obituary of the son might be written which did not comprehend the patriotic fervor by which Thomas Walter Vine and his whole family became imbued in the promulgation of the social reform which engaged them in 1856.

The Vine family arrived in Victoria by the ship Calphurnia from London in the month of July, 1853, Charles being then in his 25th year. Gold having been discovered in the hitherto unknown interior, the father and son journeyed thence to the fields which were in the language of the period, styled 'The Diggings." After this, little was heard of their adventures until 1855, when the Operative Masons' Society started the movement — it could scarcely be called an agitation — for the acquisition of the Eight Hours principle. It became necessary, however, to invite the other branches of the building trades to espouse the new movement, and thus we find C. B. Vine and his father diligently engaged in the formation of the Melbourne Progressive Society of Carpenters and Joiners. Of this society, Vine, senior, became the first president.

Early the following year, 1856, at a mass meeting of the building trades held at the Belvidere Hotel, we find the father and son being elected to the positions of president and secretary, respectively, of the inaugural procession of the Eight Hours from 'Carlton Paddock' to that almost forgotten rendezvous of early Melbourne sports, the 'Cremorne Gardens.'

It was on that occasion, May 12, 1856 — being Whit Monday— that the historic banner of the crafts first floated over the hardy pioneers, then in their youthful prime, as they wended their way amid the strains of a single band to joyfully celebrate the first of those imposing manifestations common to a free people, and which has exercised the minds of British workmen through long ages past.

It is said that there are some few still with us who took part in the memorable event here chronicled. All honor to them. It seems, however, to be now certain that, with the decease of Charles Vine, the official roll of the leaders of the Eight Hours system, and the first chapter, of the organised Labor of Australia, is closed for ever.

Of the grand old banner, the forerunner of all those beautiful emblems gorgeous in art and glory of color, which annually delight the eyes of hundreds of thousands of admiring citizens, it may not be generally known that it, too, is the product of the enterprise of the Vine family. The poles and transom were made by C. B. Vine, while the manufacture of the flag was carried out by his sisters, under their father's direction. Eight Hours Men of to-day! In your remembrance of the pioneers, let it be told for all time that Isabel and Caroline Vine, with deft fingers and filial devotion, laid the field of blue bunting which forms the ground of our Eight Hours Flag, and thereon fashioned those undying words: —

Eight Hours Labor!
Eight Hours Recreation!
Eight Hours Rest!

There be heroes in peace, no less than in war.
Let us venerate their memory while we may.

Trades Hall, Melbourne.