By Ian Stephenson, President, Bulletin 5/2023, July
The Communist Party of Australia printed its newspaper Tribune in Forest Lodge from 1943 to 1981. The Glebe Society is nominating the building for a Blue Plaque.
The fifteenth site nominated in 2021 for a Blue Plaque is 21 Ross St Forest Lodge. From 1943 until at least 1981 the Communist Party of Australia [CPA] printed their newspaper Tribune here. Other radical publications including Women’s Liberation posters and anti-Vietnam War materials were also produced here.
The CPA was founded in 1920 and reached its peak membership in the 1940s when it had 20,000 members. Tribune provided well-researched and well-written journalism on social reform.
On 24 May 1940 Tribune was banned on the grounds of weakening the war effort. On 15 June 1941 the CPA itself was banned and hundreds of properties were searched for printing presses and evidence of illegal membership. On 29 July 1941 Tribune returned as a pamphlet, initially printed on rough paper using a manual press. Searches by the Commonwealth police failed to discover its location. On 3 June 1943, restrictions on the CPA were lifted and the paper was relaunched. The premises were raided by Commonwealth security police in 1949 and 1953.
The printery survives but is now an apartment building. It is a physical testament to: the time when there were a great many independent newspapers in NSW; press control during World War II; cold war persecution of the CPA; the popular radicalism of the 1930s and 1940s and feminist and anti-Vietnam war activism of the 1960s and 70s.
Read more in our 2021 article about the printery at 21 Ross Street.
The Commonwealth Police Raid Tribune, on 13 July, 1949, Melbourne Argus (courtesy Trove)
3 comments. Please add yours.
Thank you, Ross, for confirming that the printery closed in 1989. Our research suggested that date as well but we found a few contradictions and used the guarded phrase ‘until at least 1981’, based on the photo of the presses in action in that year.
Tribune deserves a plaque but did not make the first round.
We will keep trying comrade.
Ian Stephenson
Thank you. We will check it. The Society nominated this site for a Blue Plaque, but as yet it hasn’t been accepted!
Could you please check the date of closure of the print shop. The article in 2017 states 1989 for closure before moving to Marrickville. My exCPA sources also state 1989. I would hate for the blue plaque to have the wrong date.