Left: Thomas Glassey

Thomas Glassey, miner, labor organiser and politician, was born in 1844 in County Armagh, Ireland. By the age of six he was working in a linen mill as a weaver and at thirteen he had moved to Scotland to work as a coal miner. Ten years later he moved to Newcastle where he worked as a miner, auctioneer and in a co-operative store. He arrived in Queensland in 1884 and got involved in the labor scene becoming the first secretary of the Bundamba Miners Association and the first secretary of the Ipswich Coal Miners Mutual Protective Association. First elected to State Legislature in 1888, his political career also included a stint as a Senator from 1901 to 1903. He died 28 September 1936 in Brisbane. (Information taken from OM 64-2)