HISTORY | AUSTRALIA
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by Michael Samaras
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Ted Dickinson was one of the most remarkable of the International Brigaders, those prescient individuals who fought the fascist forces of Franco, Hitler and Mussolini in the Spanish Civil War. He was born in England and as a child migrated with his family to Australia. At 20, he joined the politically radical Industrial Workers of the World and became one of its leading identities. He was physically impressive, with brown hair, blue eyes, and was described as “strikingly handsome” with a carriage as “straight as a ramrod”.
In 1928, as the economy worsened, Dickinson, with his friend Jim McNeill, campaigned for a better deal for the unemployed and led marches, protests and anti-eviction actions. The pair started a newspaper, Direct Action, and it was because of its radical articles that Dickinson was charged with sedition and imprisoned for six months.