Today marks the 128th anniversary of PS Rodney's fiery demise at the height of one of Australia's most violent industrial episodes.
abc.net.au/news/murray-river-paddle-steamer-rodney-shearers-strike/101277166Shipwrecks are synonymous with tumultuous tempests, fierce battles, mutinies and piracy, but the sinking of the Paddle-Steamer Rodney would go down in history as the first to be sunk in a fiery conflict by striking shearers.
The shearers' strike began in the early 1890s on the eve of a crippling depression and amid a scorching drought, when the country's wool growers attempted to introduce anti-union contracts to reduce shearers' pay rates and lessen the impact of plummeting wool prices. Dot Hammond, retired president of the Echuca Historical Society, grew up on a sheep station and remembers some tough times, including droughts, and understands the difficulties the wool growers would have faced at the time.
"The PS Rodney departed Echuca Wharf with only minutes to spare, before over 100 unionist shearers raided the wharf and resorted to throwing stones at the paddle-steamer." Retired shearer Rodney Taylor is passionate about the history of the 1894 shearers' strike and the PS Rodney.
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