George Pearce

Who was George Pearce?

Sir George Foster Pearce KCVO was an Australian politician who was instrumental in founding the Australian Labor Party in Western Australia.

Pearce, a carpenter, was born in Mount Barker, South Australia, to a Cornish Australian family, and educated at Red Hill Public School until he was 11. He worked on farms and later became a carpenter in Adelaide, but lost that job in the depression of 1891 and moved to Western Australia. He joined the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners and soon became heavily involved in the union movement. In April 1897 he married Eliza Maud Barrett.