# Canonical recap data for Australian Shearers' Strike (1891)
# Source: https://recap.at/1891/australian-shearers-strike
# Format: YAML 1.2 (UTF-8). Generated at request time.
slug: australian-shearers-strike
canonicalUrl: "https://recap.at/1891/australian-shearers-strike"
title: Australian Shearers' Strike
subtitle: Wool shearers across Queensland and New South Wales staged Australia's first major industrial labor action, establishing the template for unionist political power in the antipodes.
recapType: global_event
eventStatus: concluded
startDate: 1891-01-01
datePrecision: year
year: 1891
decade: 1890
country:
name: Australia
slug: australia
summaryShort: |-

  The Australian Shearers' Union was a significant but short-lived early trade union in Victoria and southern New South Wales. It was formed on 12 June 1886 at a public meeting at Fern's Hotel, Ballarat, to resist a proposed reduction of shearing rates in Victoria and New South Wales, with David Temple as secretary and 
summaryLong: |-

  The Australian Shearers' Union was a significant but short-lived early trade union in Victoria and southern New South Wales. It was formed on 12 June 1886 at a public meeting at Fern's Hotel, Ballarat, to resist a proposed reduction of shearing rates in Victoria and New South Wales, with David Temple as secretary and William Spence as president. The union was headquartered at Creswick in Victoria. A Melbourne branch was formed in July. By November 1886, it claimed 5000 members: 1500 in Victoria and 3500 in southern New South Wales. Having sought to amalgamate with the various New South Wales unions from an early stage, it merged with the smaller Wagga Shearers Union and Bourke Shearers Union to form the Amalgamated Shearers' Union of Australasia in January 1887.
heroImageUrl: "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/16/Tree_of_knowledge_barcaldine.jpg/1280px-Tree_of_knowledge_barcaldine.jpg"
heroImageCredit: "\"File:Tree of knowledge barcaldine.jpg\" by Sue mcarthur is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/."
importance: 76
sourceConfidence: 75
keyFacts: []
timeline: []
sources:
- url: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Shearers'_Union"
  title: Australian Shearers' Union
  provider: Wikipedia
related: []
categories:
- protest
- war
metaDescription: |-

  The Australian Shearers' Union was a significant but short-lived early trade union in Victoria and southern New South Wales. It was formed on 12 June 1886 at a
wikidataQid: Q85744250
archiveSnapshots:
- url: "https://web.archive.org/web/20250822020316/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Shearers%27_Union"
  capturedAt: 2025-08-22
  label: Australian Shearers' Union
  originalUrl: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Shearers'_Union"
