Working Class Tragedy
Today marks the beginning of 105th anniversary of the Great Strike of 1917 that had a tragic outcome for a resident of Rookwood. MERVYN FLANAGAN Mervyn was the son of John J Flanagan, a carter, and Susan Webster, a widow, who came to the union with five young children. Mervyn was their first child born in 1885 and was followed by four more children; a large working class family who resided in the working class suburb of Waterloo. Like his father, Mervyn became a carter (horse-drawn cart driver), married Beatrice at the age of 20 in 1905 and watched his first born son die a few months after their marriage. He and Beatrice went on to have 3 more boys. Mervyn was a member of the Trolley, Draymen and Carter's Union and was one of the nearly 70,000 people who took to the streets to protest changes to how the productivity of rail and tram workers was to be monitored. It began in NSW and spread to other States over six weeks from 2nd August to 8th September 1917. The NSW Department of Rai...