Matilda Emilie Bertha McNamara (née Kalkstein, previously Bredt; 28 September 1853 – 1 August 1931) was an Australian political activist and writer. She was born in

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

and arrived in Australia as a teenager. She became involved in the

labour movement The labour movement is the collective organisation of working people to further their shared political and economic interests. It consists of the trade union or labour union movement, as well as political parties of labour. It can be considere ...

in the early 1890s until the 1920s, running a socialist bookshop in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

and authoring numerous political pamphlets; she was eulogised as "the mother of the labour movement". She was the mother of eleven children, and her sons-in-law included the writer

Henry Lawson Henry Archibald Hertzberg Lawson (17 June 1867 – 2 September 1922) was an Australian writer and bush poet. Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period ...

and politician Jack Lang.

Life

McNamara was born on 28 September 1853 in Posen,

(present-day

Poznań Poznań ( ) is a city on the Warta, River Warta in west Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business center and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John's ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

). Her parents were Paulina Wilhelmina (née Berndt) and Karl Frederick Kalkstein, her father being a civil servant. When she was a teenager, "economic difficulties broke up the Kalkstein home", and she was sent to Australia to live with relatives. She arrived in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

in 1869 and lived with an uncle for six months, subsequently moving to

Bairnsdale, Victoria Bairnsdale (locally ) (Gunai language, Ganai: ''Wy-yung'') is a city in East Gippsland, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, situated in a region traditionally inhabited by the Tatungalung clan of the Gunaikurnai people. The estimated popu ...

, to work as the governess for her aunt Mrs Drevermann. On 26 February 1872, she married Peter Hermann Bredt, a Prussian-born accountant who worked as the secretary for the Bairnsdale Shire Council. The couple had nine children, three of whom died in infancy; three sons and three daughters survived to adulthood. After being widowed in 1888, McNamara moved to Melbourne and began working as a travelling saleswoman, selling jewellery and sewing machines. She became a political activist and published ''Home Talk on Socialism'' (1891), one of Australia's first pamphlets on socialism. On 9 July 1892 she married William McNamara founding member and secretary of the Australian Socialist League. As a result of his political publications criticizing the banks, William was sent to jail for libel. In Castlereagh St, Sydney, she ran a boarding-house in conjunction with McNamara's Book and News Depot. Bertha McNamara, who has been called 'The Mother of the Labour Movement', carried on agitating for social reform for 25 years after the death of her second husband. In 1896, her daughter, also named Bertha, married

. Another daughter, Hilda, married prominent Labor Party politician Jack Lang.

Affiliations

She was a member of the Social Democratic Federation of Australasia,

Australian Labour Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also known as the Labor Party or simply Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia and one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australi ...

, Labor Women's Central Organizing Committee and of

Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales ] The Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales, was founded in 1891 and campaigned for women's right to vote in New South Wales. Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Origins Mary Windeyer and Rose Scott, among others, ...

Death and legacy

McNamara died of pneumonia at North Sydney Council, North Sydney on 1 August 1931. A bronze bas relief of Bertha McNamara, by Lyndon Dadswell, is located in Foyer of the

Trades Hall A trades hall is a building where trade unions meet together, or work from cooperatively, as a local representative organisation, known as a labour council or trades hall council. The term is commonly used in England, New Zealand, Scotland and Aus ...

( Goulburn Street, Sydney)

Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine Entertainment. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper in ...

, 3 Aug 1931, 28 Mar 1932.

Writing

*Commercialism and Distribution of the Nineteenth Century, Forgery and Workingmen's Homes, (1894).
How to Become Rich Beyond the Dreams of Avarice
(1908) *Shylock Exposed, (1920). *Paper Money (1910).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McNamara, Bertha 1853 births 1931 deaths 19th-century Australian non-fiction writers 19th-century Australian women writers 20th-century Australian women writers 20th-century Australian non-fiction writers Australian feminist writers Australian women non-fiction writers Australian socialist feminists Emigrants from the Kingdom of Prussia German emigrants to Australia Deaths from pneumonia in New South Wales Writers from Poznań Australian booksellers