The Australian Women's Register

Summary

Henrietta Greville established her life-long involvement with the labour movement when she moved to the goldfields at West Wyalong, following the breakdown of her marriage to John Collins. Here she pegged out a claim, sold meals to the miners and helped establish a branch of the Political Labor League, as well as meeting her future husband, miner and union organizer, Hector Greville. To help support her family Greville, at times, worked as a seamstress. Later she became an organizer for the Australian Workers’ Union, the Women Workers’ Union, and for some time acted as its delegate at the Trades and Labor Council. As a Labor candidate, Greville was defeated for the federal seat of Wentworth in 1917 and the state seat of Vaucluse in 1927. Greville became associated with the Workers’ Educational Association of New South Wales in 1914 when she joined an economics class. By 1918 she was branch secretary at Lithgow, became a member of the executive in 1919 and the first woman president in 1920. Greville was still active with the association in 1954, at the age of 94. On 1 January 1958 Henrietta Greville was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for social welfare services in New South Wales.

Events

• 1940

  Worked for the Rockdale branch of the Original Old Age and Invalid Pensioners’ Association

• 1954

  Aged 94 directed a group of women studing sex hygiene for WEA

• 1970

  Moved with her parents Henry and Rebecca (née Hutchinson) Wyse and siblings from New Zealand to Victoria

• 1945

  Became a life-member of the Union of Australian Women

• 2058

  Appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire for social welfare services in New South Wales

• 1970

  Joined the Labor Party

• 1920

  First woman to be elected president of WEA

• 1917

  Stood, unsuccessfully, for the Federal electorate seat of Wentworth, representing the Women’s Central Organising Committee of the Australian Labor Party

• 1938

  President of the Labor Women’s Advisory Council

• 1970

  Organiser for the Australian Workers Union

• 1970

  Delegate to Trades and Labor Council

• 1970

  Married John Collins a jeweller at Albury Registry Office

• 1970

  Married Hector Greville a miner and union organizer

• 1908

  Organizer for the White Workers’ Union and attacked the working conditions and wages of female shirt-makers

• 1916 - 1917

  Campaigned against conscription

• 1927

  Labor candidate for the New South Wales State seat of Vaucluse

• 1914

  Joined the first tutorial class of the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) of New South Wales and studied economics for two years