Obituaries Australia

Veteran Communist, William Henry (Harry) Wilson, passed away at the Repatriation Hospital, Hobart, on Saturday, after a long illness.

Widely known in the labor movement in New South Wales and Tasmania in particular, Harry at the time of his death was President of the Tasmanian state committee of the Communist Party of Australia.

He was Federal councillor and Tasmanian executive member of his union (Painters) and a member of the Hobart Trades Hall Council, at the time of his death.

While still in his teens he mounted the stump as a soldier in France in 1916 to oppose conscription.

Nearly 30 years later he again opposed conscriptionist William Morris Hughes, this time as a Labor candidate in North Sydney.

Coming to Tasmania from N.S.W. in 1948 as an official of the Ironworkers' Union, Harry quickly became a prominent figure in the trade union and working class movement, there.

He later worked as a painter and was elected secretary of the Painters' Union in Tasmania in 1959.

Failing health forced his resignation from that position last year.

He had been re-elected Tasmanian Painters' secretary in December, 1963, by a big majority in the face of a vicious campaign of slander against him by the daily press.

Tribune extends sincere condolences to his relatives.