Laidler, Bertha May (1912 - 1975)

Bertha Laidler stood as a candidate for the Communist Party of Australia in the seat of Richmond in the Legislative Assembly at the Victorian state election, which was held in June 1943.

• Walker, Bertha (married name)

Bertha Laidler, daughter of Thomas Percival (Percy) Laidler and Christiane Alicia nee Goss was born into a socialist family. They lived above Will Andrade's bookshop in Bourke Street, Melbourne. She attended the Queensberry Street State school, Carlton.
Educated in Communism and Socialism from an early age, Laidler attended Stotts Business College and later worked for the Victorian Public Service in the Motor Registration Branch. She travelled to London in 1931 where she joined the Communist Party of Great Britain. On her return to Australia in 1933 she was active in the Communist Party of Australia, and the Shop Assistants' Union of Victoria. She later worked for the Federated Ironworkers Association of Australia in Melbourne, Sydney and Newcastle before travelling to New Zealand with fellow communists Judah Waten and Noel Counihan.
She served with the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force form May 1945 until May 1946. She moved to Darwin in October 1946 and met her future husband, Joseph Walker.
She curtailed her involvement with the CPA after having children.
She was a founding member of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History.
Her publications include: How to defeat conscription and Solidarity forever.

Australian Women Exhibitions

• Australian Women's Archives Projects, Carrying on the Fight: Women Candidates in Victorian Parliamentary Elections, Australian Women's Archives Project, 2008, http://www.womenaustralia.info/exhib/cws/home.html. [ Details... ]

Books

• Walker, Bertha, Solidarity forever: a part story of the life and times of Percy Laidler - the first quarter of a century, National Press, Melbourne, 1972, 288 pp. [ Details... ]

Book Sections

• Hudson, David, 'Walker, Bertha May (1912 - 1975)', in John Ritchie (ed.), Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 16, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2002, pp. 463-464. [ Details... ]

Booklets

• Walker, Bertha, How to defeat conscription: a story of the 1916 and 1917 campaigns, Anti-conscription Jubilee Committee, Melbourne, 1968, 22 pp. [ Details... ]