Agent TypePersonActivities & OccupationsTrade union celebrationsHistoryOn the 21st April 1856, stonemasons who were building the University of Melbourne struck work and marched to the building site at Parliament House collecting fellow stomemasons on the way. Their demand was for the eight hour day - eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, and eight hours rest - and they became the second union in Australia to achieve it after the stonemasons in Sydney achieved it in 1855. In the decades which followed the stonemasons' victory, the eight hour day became the ideal of the nineteenth century Australian labour movement. In Victoria, April was adopted as the month in which the Pioneers of the Eight Hours Movement was commemorated with a procession from the Trades Hall through the city streets of Melbourne, followed by a picnic and sports events in parks including the Carlton Gardens surrounding the Royal Exhibition Buildings. These processions attracted thousands of spectators, with union members marching and resplendent in their membership badges and official insignia and large union banners mounted on horse drawn drays. This custom became less important and ceased after the second world war.
Names
Family NameEight Hour Jubilee Medal
Eight Hour Jubilee Medal. University of Melbourne Archives, accessed 17/03/2026, https://archives.library.unimelb.edu.au/nodes/view/60603
