Henry Ernest Boote (1865 – 1949) was a prolific and influential Australian editor, journalist, propagandist, poet, and fiction writer. He was an ardent trade unionist and socialist whose writings supported and sought to influence the Australian labour movement and the Australian Labor Party. In addition to his political and social commentaries in articles and pamphlets, his output included political and allegorical novels, essays and several volumes of verse. Boote's political philosophy was radical but measured, seeking to reconcile socialist idealism with the practical realities of Australian politics.
Boote emigrated to Australia from England in 1889 and worked as a compositor in Brisbane. From 1894 he worked as an editor of several regional newspapers associated with the Queensland labour movement. He edited Brisbane's The Worker newspaper from 1902. In 1911 Boote relocated to Sydney and joined the staff of The Australian Worker, owned and operated by the Australian Workers' Union (AWU). He was appointed editor in 1914 and remained in that position until his retirement in 1943.
Biography
Early years
Henry Ernest Boote was born on 20 May 1865 at Liverpool in Merseyside, north-west England, the eldest of six children of Joseph Henry Boote and his wife Elizabeth (née Jolley). His father had started a business as a mercer after leaving the Army, assisted by funds from his stepfather. Henry later recorded that the business eventually failed due to his father's "convivial habits".Henry Boote and the Australian Workers’ Union by Harry Knowles, Australian Society for the Study of Labour History website; accessed 4 June 2024.Frank Farrell (1979), Henry Ernest Boote (1865–1949), Australian Dictionary of Biography website, National Centre of Biology, Australian National University; accessed 4 June 2024. He was educated at Liverpool Public School.Guide to the Papers of Henry E. Boote, Trove website, National Library of Australia; accessed 6 September 2024.
Young Henry left school aged ten years and found a job in a printery, a position known as a 'printer's devil', performing tasks such as mixing ink and fetching type. He later served his apprenticeship as a compositor.Nearly Fifty Years in Labor Journalism, The Australian Worker (Sydney), 17 March 1943, pages 3-4. He continued his education by reading "serious books" in local free libraries and developed an interest in sketching and painting. Later Boote attended art classes at the Royal Academy and the British Museum. By about 1885, when he was aged twenty, he sold some of his pictures to a Liverpool art dealer. The dealer engaged Boote to copy pictures hanging at the Walker Art Gallery and later sent him to Wales to paint "from nature". When the art dealer left for South Africa, Boote returned to work in the printing trade. He was a member of the Liverpool branch of the Manchester Typographical Union.A Refutation, The Worker (Brisbane), 5 September 1903, page 11.
Brisbane
Boote emigrated to the Australian colony of Queensland in 1889. He sailed from London aboard the R.M.S. Orient in early March and arrived at Sydney on 18 April 1889.Shipping, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 April 1889, page 4.Ian Syson (1996), page 75. While the vessel "was laying in Sydney Harbour", Boote was "engaged under agreement" by an agent of the Master Printers' Association for work at the Brisbane printing office of Messrs. Warwick and Sapsford. The Orient returned to England via Melbourne, so Boote travelled from Sydney to Brisbane aboard an inter-colonial steamer. On the day after his arrival in Brisbane, Boote went to the Trades Hall and met with the Secretary of the Queensland Typographical Association, Albert Hinchcliffe. He presented his clearance from the Manchester Typographical Union to Hinchcliffe, together with a letter of introduction and recommendation from the Liverpool branch secretary.Maxwell and the "Worker", letter to the editor from Henry E. Boote, The Worker (Brisbane), 5 August 1905, page 14. Boote's application to join the Queensland Typographical Association (QTA) was considered at a special meeting of the union management on 25 May, with a representative of the employees at Warwick and Sapsford being present. Boote was admitted provisionally as a member "pending inquiries". He was formally admitted as a member of the QTA at its regular monthly meeting on 8 June 1889. The business premises of Warwick and Sapsford was located in Adelaide Street in Brisbane.Warwick and Sapsford's New Offices, The Brisbane Courier, 9 October 1886, page 5.
Henry Boote and Mary Jane Paingdestre were married in Brisbane on 6 October 1889.Family records, Ancestry.com. The couple had one son and two daughters.
Boote had two oil paintings exhibited in the fine art section of the 1891 Exhibition in Brisbane of the National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland. His painting were titled 'Before the Daily Toil Begins' and 'The St. Lucia Reach', with the latter being described as "an exceptionally good piece of work".The Exhibition: The Opening Ceremony, The Brisbane Courier, 20 August 1891, pages 5-7.
In 1892 Boote was recorded as being employed as a compositor, living at Tillot Street near Boggo Road Gaol in Dutton Park, Brisbane.Elections Act of 1886-1892, The Brisbane Courier, 11 October 1892, page 7. Boote was recorded as being a "prominent South Brisbane draughts player".Notes, The Queenslander (Brisbane), 29 September 1894, page 595. He sometimes represented the firm of Warwick and Sapsford in draughts matches against employees of other businesses.Draughts Match, The Queenslander (Brisbane), 16 June 1894, page 1116.
Boote's first published articles appeared in Brisbane's The Worker newspaper, the official journal of the Australian Labour Federation.Henry Boote: An Appreciation by T. J. O'Sullivan, The Worker (Brisbane), 22 August 1949, page 7. After trouble amongst the employees where he worked, Boote was invited by the editor of The Worker to write about the situation in his workplace. When Boote took it along to the newspaper office, the editor was impressed and suggested that he should write an article for the newspaper.Early Memories of H. E. Boote by R. R. F. Hill, The Australian Worker (Sydney), 13 April 1949, page 3. Boote's first article was published in the issue of 9 September 1893. It was the first of what became a regular column called 'A Fool's Talk'.A Fool's Talk by H.E.B., The Worker (Brisbane), 9 September 1893, page 3. He later explained that "the spirit of the Labour Movement in the early nineties had seized upon him, and he had felt something stirring within him that claimed utterance".Departure of Editor Boote: Farewell to "Touchstone", The Worker (Brisbane), 1 April 1911, page 10. His 'A Fool's Talk' column, by 'Touchstone', appeared weekly during September and October 1893 and only occasionally after that.Examples: A Fool's Talk by H.E.B., The Worker (Brisbane), 16 September 1893, page 2; A Fool's Talk by H.E.B., The Worker, 7 October 1893, page 3; A Fool's Talk by H.E.B., The Worker, 4 November 1893, page 3; A Fool's Talk by 'Touchstone', The Worker, 22 December 1894, page 2; A Fool's Talk by 'Touchstone', The Worker, 28 March 1896, page 7.
Editorial positions
Bundaberg
In 1894, while employed at Messrs. Warwick and Sapsford, Boote applied for the position of editor of The Guardian newspaper in Bundaberg, a journal published by the Bundaberg Co-operative Printing and Publishing Co. Ltd. and with affiliation to the Labor Party. He was appointed to the position in September 1894 after a selection process involving two other applicants.Smoke-Ho, The Worker (Brisbane), 22 September 1894, page 2.
Gympie
In April 1896 the Labor politician Andrew Fisher lost the election for the seat of Gympie in the Queensland Legislative Assembly. Fisher had previously held one of the seats in the dual member electorate for the Australian Labor Party. His loss in 1896 was partly attributed to strong opposition from the local Gympie Times newspaper. To counter the influence of the Times, Fisher and a group of Labor party members floated a company (Truth Co. Ltd.) to establish a rival local journal named Truth (often referred to as the Gympie Truth).D. J. Murphy (1981), Andrew Fisher (1862–1928), Australian Dictionary of Biography website, National Centre of Biology, Australian National University; accessed 6 September 2024. In early June 1896 it was reported that Boote would be the editor of the newly-established Truth newspaper at Gympie, described as a "new Labour paper".Mr. H. E. Boote..., The Worker (Brisbane), 6 June 1896, page 3. Fisher had asked Boote to relocate to Gympie to edit Truth, which was published bi-weekly from July 1896.Truth, the latest addition..., The Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser, 17 July 1896, page 2. A review of the new periodical described it as a "bright and promising journal", with a "rose-tinted" cover "resplendent with blue ink". The editor, Henry Boote, was described as "one of the ablest of the new cult of Queensland Labour pressmen, and besides being a strong but moderate and clever writer, he is witty and original".The new Labour paper..., The Charleville Courier, 25 July 1896, page 3. Boote and Fisher, together with George Ryland, a local union organiser, largely wrote and produced the newspaper. Boote was not only the editor, but also the reporter and advertisement canvasser, working for two pounds per week. Boote and Fisher (who later became prime minister of Australia) remained friends until Fisher's death in 1928.
In the lead-up to the Queensland colonial election in March 1899 Fisher did not seek formal endorsement as a candidate for Gympie by the Labor executive in Brisbane, but chose to fight the election locally.Messrs. Fisher and Ryland, Gympie Times and Mary River Mining Gazette, 2 March 1899, page 3.Gympie Election: The Nominations, Gympie Times and Mary River Mining Gazette, 4 March 1899, page 3. Both he and Ryland were elected for the seat of Gympie. At the declaration of the election results on 14 March the candidate who ran third in the poll by fifteen votes, the Gympie solicitor Francis I. Power, had some bitter words to say about the fairness of the election, specifically referring to a leaflet printed by the Truth which he described as "a tissue of lies reeking with venom". He quoted a section of the leaflet that read: "Do you believe in black labor and leprosy? then plump for Power" (a reference to the employment of workers from the Pacific Islands in sugar plantations). The solicitor's attack focussed on Boote, as the editor, who replied: "I am the author and I am proud of it".Gympie Election, Gympie Times and Mary River Mining Gazette, 16 March 1899, pages 3-4.
Boote was a member of the Social Democratic Vanguard, formed in Brisbane in 1901 and described as a proto-syndicalist socialist organisation.Denis J. Murphy (1970), page 327.Social Democratic Vanguard, Reason in Revolt: Source Documents of Australian Radicalism website; accessed 8 September 2024; Manifesto of the Social-Democratic Vanguard, The Red Light, 1901. The syndicalist agenda emphasised the primacy of industrial workers within the structure of society. Strike action was encouraged as a means of enforcing solidarity amongst workers and controlling the means of production in the process of achieving a post-capitalist society.Raymond Postgate (1951), The Life of George Lansbury, London: Longmans, Green & Co., pages 138-142.
In August 1901 Boote resigned as editor of Gympie's Truth newspaper. In early September a "farewell social" was held for him at the Hibernian Hall at which he was presented with "a handsomely framed address" on behalf of the directors, shareholders and employees of Truth Co. Ltd.A farewell social..., Gympie Times and Mary River Mining Gazette, 3 September 1901, page 3.Prior to his departure..., The Worker (Sydney), 14 September 1901, page 5.
Brisbane's The Worker