Edward Clavell Tripp (25 September 1900 – 21 September 1979) was an English-born Australian political organiser and communist.
Tripp was born at
Acton Acton may refer to:
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in
London to cigar merchant Clavell John Francis Tripp and Violet Mary, ''née'' Vinall. He attended boarding school and, despite taking the
University of Cambridge entrance examination, became an apprentice to an engineer. He worked for the Metropolitan Railways in London during
World War I and became politically radicalised by the 1917
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and ad ...
. In 1924 Tripp moved to
Western Australia and then to
Townsville, where he worked on the government railways and joined the
Australian Workers' Union and the
Communist Party of Australia. In 1929 he ran for the
Legislative Assembly of Queensland as an
Independent Communist candidate for
Mundingburra
Mundingburra is a Suburbs and localities (Australia), suburb of Townsville in the City of Townsville, Queensland, Australia. In the , Mundingburra had a population of 3,620 people.
Geography
Mundingburra is predominantly a residential suburb ...
. He visited
Britain,
Germany and
Moscow later in 1929 and leaned towards
Trotskyism, returning to Australia by mid-1930.
In 1931 Tripp was a candidate for the
1931 by-election for the
House of Representatives seat of
Parkes, making him the first endorsed Communist to stand for federal parliament. At the
federal election
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated ...
later that year he contested
Darling
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* Darling (surname)
* Darling Jimenez (born 1980), American boxer
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and in 1932 ran for the
New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of
King. Despite being president of the Friends of the Soviet Union from 1930 to 1933, he lost favour with the Communist Party and was expelled in 1934, joining the Sydney Trotskyists, a local branch of the Workers' Party of Australia. He became secretary of the Workers' Party in 1935 and edited the organisations journal, the ''Militant''. He fell out with his new party in 1937 and led the League for Revolutionary Democracy (Independent Communist League), a rival group.
[
Tripp moved to Melbourne in 1938 and on 30 July married Ruby May Bullock at ]Carlton
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. He worked as a fitter in a munitions factory at Footscray until 1965 but continued his involvement in the radical unionist movement, being appointed tutor at the Victorian Labor College in 1945 and becoming the college's secretary in 1956. In a largely symbolic gesture he joined the Socialist Workers' Party in 1978. He died at Footscray in 1979.[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tripp, Ted
1900 births
1979 deaths
Australian Marxists
Australian communists
Australian Trotskyists
Communist Party of Australia members
British emigrants to Australia