Chummy Fleming - Early Life

Early Life

He was born in Derby, England in 1863 to an Irish father, employed as a weaver, and an English mother, employed as a factory hand. His maternal grandfather had been involved in the Corn Laws struggles, and his father was active in strikes in Derby. His mother died when 'Chummy' was five. At the age of 10 he was sent to work in a Leicester boot factory, which took its toll on the boy's health, and gave him a personal understanding of social injustice. In his teens he attended Freethought lectures of Charles Bradlaugh, George Jacob Holyoake and Annie Besant.

At the invitation of an uncle living in Melbourne, he migrated to Australia in 1884, gaining immediate work as a bootmaker and joining the Victorian Operative Bootmakers Union. Almost immediately he involved himself in radical politics by attending the second annual Secular Conference in Sydney in 1884, organised by the Australasian Secular Association. In Melbourne he started attending Queens Wharf and North Wharf Sunday afternoon meetings at the Yarra River where popular speakers included Joseph Symes, President of the Australasian Secular Association, Monty Miller, a veteran radical from the Eureka Stockade, and William Trenwith, an aspirant labour politician.