Tom Barker and the IWW

Recorded edited and introduced by Eric Fry, Canberra 1965

This was one of society’s earliest publications and probably its first excursion into the field of oral history. It was based on Eric Fry’s recorded interview with Tom Barker where he was living in London in 1963.

Tom Barker (1887-1970) was a leading member of the International Workers of the World (IWW) who was famously imprisoned in 1916 for publishing a cartoon opposing World War 1. Despite being British born, he was deported to Chile by the Australian government two years later.

Tom Barker appears in the second banner photo on the front page of this web site. The speaker is Donald Grant, later to become a Labor Senator. Tom is standing to his left, holding a copy of the IWW paper Direct Action.

A  PDF file of this historic document can be viewed or downloaded here. Note, this file is quite large (22MB) and will take a while to download.