User:Ikeshut2/sandbox4

Henry Ernest Boote (1865 – 1949) was an Australian editor, journalist, propagandist, poet, and fiction writer.

Early years
Henry Ernest Boote was born on 20 May 1865 at Liverpool in Merseyside, north-west England, the eldest child 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".

Young Henry left school aged ten years and found a job as an apprentice in a printery, a position known as a 'printer's devil', performing tasks such as mixing ink and fetching type. 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.

Queensland
Boote emigrated to Australia in 1889. 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 to Hinchcliffe his clearance from his union in Liverpool and joined the Queensland union. Boote began working in Brisbane as a compositor.

Henry Boote and Mary Jane Paingdestre were married in Brisbane on 6 October 1889.

Boote had his first articles published in the Brisbane's The Worker, established as a monthly newspaper in March 1890.

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".

In 1892 Boote was recorded as a compositor, living at Tillot Street near Boggo Road Gaol in Dutton Park, Brisbane.

He was an inspired trade unionist and became involved in the Queensland labour movement, writing articles and propagandist from a socialist slant. In 1894, the Australian Labour Federation posted Boote to Bundaberg as editor of the Bundaberg Guardian. In 1896 he moved to Gympie, where he established a paper called The Gympie Truth, and in 1902 became editor of The Worker in Brisbane. He was also the founding editor of The Queensland Worker (1902–11), and

The Worker


The Australian Worker (1914–43) Boote was a friend and associate of Prime Ministers Andrew Fisher, James Scullin, and John Curtin.

Death
Boote died in Rose Bay, New South Wales on 14 August 1949.

Obituary.

Prose

 * A Fool's Talk, Sydney: The Worker Trustees, 1915.
 * The Case of Grant: Fifteen Years for Fifteen Words, Sydney: Social Democratic League, 1917.
 * Guilty or Not Guilty?: An Examination of the I.W.W. Cases, Sydney: Labor Council of N.S.W., 1917.
 * Set the Twelve Men Free: An Examination of the Sensational Fresh Facts Brought Out Before the I.W.W Royal Commission, Sydney: The Worker Print, 1918.
 * The Land of Wherisit: A Cycle of Tales That Begins at the End and Ends at the Beginning; Told by a Graduate of All Fools' College for the Entertainment of His Kind, Sydney: The Judd Publishing Co., 1919.
 * The Human Ladder: An Australian Story of Our Own Time, Sydney: Judd Publishing, 1920.
 * Tea with the Devil: And Other Diversions, Sydney: Worker Trustees, 1928.

Poetry

 * As I Went By: Poems, Sydney: Worker Trustees, 1933.
 * The Siren City, Sydney, 1935.
 * I Look Forth, Sydney: Worker Trustees, 1937.
 * May Day: A Commemoration Poem Written for the Great May Day Demonstration in Sydney, 1938, Sydney: Worker Trustees, 1938. Ten thousand copies of this poem, printed as a four-page leaflet, were distributed during the Sydney May Day Demonstration, 1938.